I am facing an inconvenient situation that I will try to explain as well as I can. Here is my case:
One and a half years ago, I submitted my paper to Journal A. The reviewing process started and I managed to convince three out of four reviewers. All of the reviewers asked the editor to accept my submission. The last reviewer asked me to include an unusual comparison method. I refused to add the non-standard method and the reviewer ask the editor to reject my paper which he did immediately. Being shocked, I wrote an email to the editor asking him to give me a chance to correct the misunderstanding. Not receiving an answer to my email, I decided to submit my paper to Journal B. After a while, the editor of Journal A sent me an email telling me that he has decided to give me another chance. Now, I am facing an unintentional double submission situation. My paper is "With the editor" on Journal B and hasn't yet been sent to the reviewers. Considering that I spent so much time convincing the reviewers of Journal A, I don't want to miss the opportunity of revising my paper in Journal A. Yet, I don't want to mess things up with Journal B because they are a very reputable journal, and I want to work with them in the future.
Now, I want to ask Journal B to freeze my submission to prevent from double submission problem. My problem is that I don't know whether they will understand me or not.
- How would you recommend that I write an email to them?
- Is this kind of situation normal?
- Will they black-list me?
- Will they understand me if I write them honestly?
- Will I lose my chance of submitting other papers to any of the Journals?
Both Journals are very reputable journals and I don't want to get into any problems with any of them.