Dear Geist,

I submitted a short story to a magazine four months ago and have not yet heard from them. Their writers’ guidelines say that they do not read simultaneous submissions, meaning they don’t want me to submit the story elsewhere while they are considering it. This has happened to me twice before, with the same story. Do I really have to wait half a year every time I submit my story to another magazine?

Dear Wearing,

Short answer: no. If you do sell it somewhere else, though, it is courteous to fling out an email to any other mags who have your story and politely withdraw it from consideration. (That’ll teach ’em!)