As of July 9, 2010, 908 women (and two men!) have shared their stories with I’m Not Sorry.net.
Thanks for your interest in sharing your story! Your voice will be added to those who are telling the world that exercising their right to a safe, legal abortion does not have to be the regretful guilt-ridden trip to victimhood the anti-choicers would have you believe. Here are a few tips to help you put your story together:
1. I try not to be anal about length. I do reserve the right to cut down on the occasional tangent, but generally if it makes for good reading it gets left alone. The most frequent edits are for spelling and punctuation. If more drastic editing is called for, you’ll be notified.
2. Please do not submit stories in any other way than with the submission form (link located at the bottom of this page).
3. Please try not to use net-speak and/or abbreviations. Keep in mind that INS has an international readership, and what is understandable to one person may not be to another. Also, PLEASE capitalize “I,” don’t submit in all caps, and use your spelling/grammar checker. I know it’s not the cool and trendy thing to do, but it will save me loads of work and keep me from heaping curses on your head.
4. Stories must be in the first person. INS will not accept stories that start, “Well, I never had an abortion, but my girlfriend did, and here’s her story.” Yes, there are a couple of stories like that on the site currently, but I’m invoking the grandmother clause on those. Also wait until you actually undergo an abortion before submitting your story–for some reason I’ve been getting a lot of stories where the submitter is going to get one but hasn’t yet.
5. INS only uses first names. If you have an unusual name, you may want to use a pseudonym. You can provide one or INS can create one for you. If you do make up your own pseudonym, please make it an actual name and not a screen or IM name. It’s hard for a story to be taken seriously when the name on it is xxSexxyBitch91xx or something along those lines (don’t laugh, someone actually wanted me to use that as the name on her story).
6. When a story is submitted, it is with the understanding that it becomes the property of I’mNotSorry.net.
7. Unless permission is given from the publisher, INS discourages the submission of previously published stories. Bloggers who’d like to share their stories on this site are asked to contact me, as INS would rather paste the story than link to it.
8. INS respects its contributors’ privacy and does NOT share e-mail addresses with anyone. There is absolutely ZERO chance that anyone can get your personal information either from your posted story or the website itself. If someone claims that they got your e-mail from the site (as one anti-choice group stupidly did), they’re full of it. If you run into this, please e-mail me with the information so I can lay the smack down on them as deserved.
9. Submitting a story to INS is not a guarantee that it will be posted. I format all the stories, so I read all the stories. If you submit your story and it is not posted, chances are it was deemed inappropriate for the site. If you have any questions about your story’s suitability for INS or you feel that your story was excluded unfairly, please send me an e-mail.
If you have any other questions, please contact me.
