A Writer's Paradise

Rejections Aplenty, aka, the Summer of Death

Lessee... in the past month, I've gotten the brush off from Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and today, Baen's Universe. They've all been so-close-yet-so-far.

And now, I must take those brush-offs, brush myself off, and get going on sending that stuff back out... I'll just close my eyes and think of Asimov's, I guess.

Basically, that means of all the stuff I knew or suspected (rightly) had made it out of slush this summer, there's one that hasn't been rejected yet (at Intergalactic Medicine Show).

All apropos of nothing, but I'm usually more glad than less glad in later years when I'm trying to remember how I was feeling about the whole process at certain points.

Rejections, Babies...

I got some. I'm moving on.

School is taking up too much time.

I'm working as hard as I can on the novel(s), but it's tough.

Dave Klecha, writing buddy and good friend, just became a dad for the second time! Go, Dave! More importantly, go, Tarri!

Now. How are you?

Rejectomancy from Forest for the Trees

I quote to you now this paragraph from Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers:

"[Here are] what I call editorial rejection euphemisms: not right for our list (get it out of here), pacing problems (boring), exhaustive (academic/boring), somewhat heavy-handed (preachy), not without charm (too precious), nicely written but ultimately unsatisfying (plotless), underdeveloped characters (totally stock), nice sense of place (is this about anything?), not enough tension (mind-numbingly slow), feels familiar (yet another road-trip / coming-of-age / ugly-duckling / dysfunctional-family novel), entertaining (overwritten), crowded marketplace (not another!), and my personal favorite: too special (which of course means it won't sell)." p. 174

Well. I've been called "entertaining" in rejection letters enough times that I have a complex now, but I do suspect the list of euphemisms is somewhat different for short fiction. Or, I hope it is. Also, I'm wondering how many nicely writtens with no "but" after it mean the same thing as Lerner lists.

Anyway. Here's today's Great Truth of Trying to Get Published: editors always claim that rejectomancy is a waste of time, but the fact is, there are euphemisms, and that's what rejectomancy really is, an attempt to decipher the euphemisms. I know editors who think it's terribly clear when they say "it didn't grab me" versus "it didn't hold my attention," but in fact, it takes some thought, and it's very handy when the editor comes out in public and says, "Look. 'Didn't grab' means I didn't make it past the first page. 'Didn't hold' means I didn't make it to the end."

Also: I rejectomance, therefore I am.

Rejections and Revelations

Got a nice rejection on "Souls on a String." I think I'm going to have to retire the story, unless I can think of another market I respect who might be interested. The story isn't a great fit for a lot of mags. I believe this was the one that Asimov's called "too elliptical" which has become a running joke around our house. I am very often too ellpitical.

In other news, I have revisited my big plan to write a whack of short stories this summer. Mostly because there is one currently stuck crosswise in my head, and won't come out. I sort of remembered today, while floating in the lake with Julie that at some point in the not-so-distant past I said I was giving up on short stories because it wasn't my natural writing length. And somehow... I forgot this?

The other thing that became clear to me about short stories this weekend, too, was that I

1) don't like having such a short period of time to connect with the characters. I believe that's pretty self-explanatory.

2) have learned pretty much all I can learn right now from writing short stories--someday, I'll need to learn something else from the process, but for now, it's stalled. Or plateaued. Granted, I don't write to learn something, but when I've already got a whack-load of other reasons to be tired of short stories, I can't think why, when I don't even have that reason in play, to keep lumbering on.

Of course, if I get mugged by a short story, I get mugged by one. But really, I want to be writing my novels, and I was supposed to be, but I got very, very distracted somewhere along the way....

Finally, I did get the galleys done for "An Almanac for the Alien Invaders," which looks very fetching in page-proof form, I must say. The Asimov's font with the title and my name... guh. Sex-ay. Of course, I say this now, after the galley-nausea has abated. I buckled down and read through the story and even found a few typos and dropped words, and corrected some things that needed correcting (capital e in Earth, frex), and then, Elizabeth proofread it, too, and found two dropped words, and now I think I owe her dinner, because I feel about three hundred times better now.

So.

Here I are.

Oh, and here's where I kayaked today:



I thought at the time that it wasn't as far as normal, and I see now that it wasn't. I was thrown off my game by starting late (too much wind-wave action, and boater-wave action), and my new gloves kept my hands from hurting so I had a rather difficult time knowing how long I'd been out. Apparently, aching hands was a metric I understood rather well!

Out of clever rejection entry titles; this is mostly about books anyway.

Speedy JJA reject from F&SF on Friday... Three rejections in seven days! It's not a record by any means, but after weeks of no mail, it's odd.

So. Books.

(30) The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown [non-fiction; biography]

Hm. This biography--which may actually have been more like a recitation of press events coupled with some insider dish than a true biography, it's hard to say--was an enlightening chronicle (exactly as its title says) of a public life that I only barely registered while it was being lived. I remember, with a kindergartener's bile, the pre-emption of my cartoons for the royal wedding in 1981. I always liked Fergie and her red hair better than Diana while I was growing up, but there's nothing quite like untimely death to get my attention. The greatest enjoyment I got out of the book was probably the look at how the monarchy functions today, and some interesting statements about the balance of power versus the display of power.

(31) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [fantasy]
(32) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix [fantasy]
(33) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [fantasy]

My first reads on these three (obviously by J.K. Rowling). I liked Goblet well enough, thought Phoenix dragged a lot at the start, but Half-Blood Prince really worked for me, as I felt that wise, competent, practically-adult Harry is a guy who I'd really be able to get behind if he were, you know, leading a magical army that I might want to join.

I am not a mega-fan of this series--I have no wish to immerse myself into HP fandom, for example, and no desire to find or write fic. (I might watch a vid or two, but that's different.) But I can't understand the detractors of this series--at least, not the ones who've read it. I completely understand not wanting to jump on the bandwagon. I just don't know why you'd bother reading all of them if you aren't somewhat moved by the characters or the situations, and then rant on about the small, sentence-level mundanities in the writing. Obviously, these books aren't about the writing. Not the style, not the voice, not the prose itself. The best thing Rowling does is to not allow style/voice/prose to get in the way of her strengths, which are many. The books are about the story, the struggle, the conflict. And that's enough, isn't it?

Now, I must twiddle my thumbs until my book 7 copy gets here from Britain. Sigh.

Rejectio!

And a rejection flew into her hand.

A 62-day rejection from Strange Horizons. The second rejection from Jed lately in which he said he really liked the ending. This is a bonus. I was sucking at endings for a long time. Of course, the beginning is bloatated (is too a word).

Sadly, I agree.

Sadly, I knew this before I sent it.

Sadly, I just don't know HOW to fix it, because the story is this one way in my head, and it takes me (on average) about four years to forget how things are in my head and let the story rework itself properly for paper.

I might have to let this one stew for a while.

et in rejectia, ego

Speedy 78-day rejection from Asimov's. The remaining novella market is looking pretty slim, especially for comic-romantic speculative fiction novellas. Er, novellettes, I mean. (Too many categories and not enough meaning in their differentiation, in my opinion.)

If only the CatScratch Gothic SF anthology had a sister "space opera of manners" anthology....

I think I'll try Andromeda Spaceways next.

Lobbing those Turnips

Sent out "The Girl-Prince" last night. I was going to speculate on what sort of Alas-o-gram I might get, but that felt too depressing. Must continue to live in a happy bubble of possibility as long as possible, no?

I did manage to smooth it down from 7,300 to 6,900 words. This felt like an accomplishment--breaking the psychological 7k barrier.

Oh, the lying stories and the lying writers who write them.... I mean, this is how the conversation went when we first met:

"The Girl-Prince": I am an interesting idea. You are a comely writer. Wanna snog?
Merrie Haskell: Er, sure. You know I have no attention span, though, right?
TGP: It's cool. You'll finish me in two nights. Call me a two-night stand, if you will. Haha. No, I promise--I'll come in under 4k.
MH: Well. You are kind of cute. And your first paragraphs basically mugged me already--look, there they are, on note-paper. I never write anything in longhand anymore, and yet... you've moved me.
TGP: Cool beans.

Then, two weeks later:

TGP: I'm late.
MH: That's impossible! You SWORE that you were going to come under 4k.
TGP: I don't know how it happened... the signs are all there, though. You're cranky, I'm bloated, my beginning is tender, and my denouement is missing in action.
MH: You're at 5,000 words. Maybe you'll be done in another 500 and then we can cut 1k off in the rewrite--
TGP: You're in denial, babe.

It's been tough, but we got there.

Rejection Junction

Today, a rejection from Interzone. I am actually this close (makes small space with finger) from giving up on that story, but I won't. For one thing, I haven't tried ten markets yet. (If ten is even my new minimum, which it might not be.) For another, Jetse essentially gave me a valuable critique on the story with the rejection--and while I do have a rule about not rewriting in between submissions, I'm wondering if this isn't one of those times where I should break the rule 'cause--well--Jetse's crit feels right.

(Okay, "critique" is not actually the right word. But he did explain why he was rejecting it, and at length.)

Anyway. Bleah. No, I don't have time for a rewrite. So. This is where I ask myself if I sit on it for a while, or if I send it to the next market sans rewrite. Actually, since I'm asking myself this question in public, I think I know the answer--while I should be a good role model and send the story out, I'd hate for an editor to stumble onto this someday and wonder why I was sending out what I know to be subpar work.

Oh, the dilemma! (*makes gestures of woe and dismay*)

New Resolution

I've been thinking that I need to enforce some rejection goals for myself. And that it's no bad thing to do this publicly. I was thinking to call this project "20 or 200" (actually, I was initially going to call it "60 or 600", but that's ridiculous)--as in, no giving up on a short story until it has 20 rejections, no giving up on finding an agent until a particular MS has 200.

Hm.

Or maybe "30 or 300."

Or maybe I'm going to have to accept my numbers aren't going to be the image of symmetry. ("25 or 200")

Anyway, since I'm not doing this entirely for myself--I mean, I have a pretty good case of stick-it-out-itis, though it does falter--but rather, I'm trying also to model persistence. I wonder what else would be helpful? Samples or quotes from rejection letters? Scanned rejection letters with funny comments (ones that won't burn any bridges, of course)?

This isn't a terribly unique idea. Rejection Collection is way ahead of me on this one, but not in a good or positive way. And I remember stumbling across a website with a collection of form rejections from every place this particular author had tried--but not much commentary or discussion.

I just know that when I was going through the five stages of grief every time I got an SASE back in the mail, I would have cried from happiness to find some insightful commentary on rejection. I go through periods of information-voraciousness now and again, and the early days of submitting stories was one of them. I never could find enough info on rejection--what was normal? What was to be concerned about? Are they trying to make me cry?

So. Yeah. Look for that.

Rejections and Retreats

Today, rejection from F&SF. My husband says it's my fault for not including, "I sold to Asimov's, bitches!" in the cover letter. I pointed out that I basically said that, minus the "bitches," but he thinks that's where I went wrong.

Onward.

It looks like there is a Summer Feral Writers' Retreat in the offing. Assuming I can bring any Feral Writers on board. (You can go read the retreat quotes, but you must realize that I actually rarely drink and am also incoherent and crazy like that only amongst loved ones.) Ahem. This is to replace the fizzled workshop Dave and I didn't end up running this year. Sorta.

Okay, I now swear to hang up the internet and write for the next hour. Possibly two. If I can stay awake that long.

I got no story, I got no game.

There are a few days yet to the deadline for Sword and Sorceress 22, and that means nothing right now. I sent them two of my best stories. I got two of their best rejections. The coal-fired ambition to write something AwEsOmE!eleventyone!!! before the deadline is a terrible ambition, because I'm not the kind of person who can go from draft zero to saleable story in five days. Especially since I don't even have a draft zero yet.

On the other hand, I'm proud that I know myself that well these days.

On the third hand, it really frees up my week to not have to write, finish and submit a story that I barely comprehend. Frees it up a lot.

Onward to more enticing projects with a likelier pay off...

Reject Away, My Friends... You'll Only Make Me Stronger

Second rejection of the year, and it's only January 4th! Yep, Lady Churchill finally owned up to having my submission. The rejection letter basically states, "We dithered. It was good, see, but not great" (massive paraphrase all mine).

Okay then. Onward. Though onward is getting a smidge tough with this story. Though onward would be easier if Farthing opened back up to subs and Interzone opened back up to e-subs...

But, there is good news! Rich Horton reviewed Farthing, and mentioned me by name. When and if a link is produced, we'll go from there, and I'll share the love in detail. Of course, when I say he mentioned me, I mean that he mentioned me: "Also, stories by Paul E. Martens, Bruce Golden, Merrie Haskell, and Marsheila Rockwell are worth mentioning." Right? See? Mentioned.

Other news: I've managed to write to goal all year so far! And ConFusion is right around the corner!

First Day of the Year

Last year I made a sale on January 1st... this year, I got a rewrite request from Postscripts. The suggestions are good, but I'm not sure it's something I can do write now... this story has been buffed and buffeted a bit, and I may just need to let it be.

We'll see, though. Perhaps I'll feel more galvanized after I make a running start at jumping back into writing.

From the Randomness Department:
I think I need one of those nifty envelope sorters with the dates on them. I'm not exactly sure why, but perhaps its usefulness would be clearer if I had one.

Rejections

Scalzi's post today on rejection is good as far as it goes, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the vast majority of newbie writers who ask something like that are looking for another answer... particuarly, short story spec fic writers.

The quest for understanding rejection ate up a good portion of my brain time in my first year of submitting. I've written about it plenty. Here's a selection of rejectomancy faves from yours truly:

• Learning to Take Rejection in the First Year

• Mediations Upon Receiving Rejection Number 36 (The One from GGV)

• And Rejection 100

• Rejection is Inevitable

• The Volume Discount on (the) Pain (of Rejection)

• A View of Rejection from the Slushpile

• And I write a fair amount about rejection in My Sophomore Year, too.

But not a one of these--nor any of the many entries about rejection that I didn't link to--talk stats. (Surprisingly. I really thought I talk about that kind of stuff more.)

First, there's my Stats Page, of course... which seems to bear out a statistic that was randomly told to me by a pro author I surveyed in my first year of submitting: ten percent, said she. "At or about ten percent."

Now for me, that's "I get monetized acceptances for about ten percent of my submissions"--not "I have a ten percent pro success rate." (And I have a 1% pro (SFWA-level pro) acceptance rate, I just realized. Somewhat less than that now, actually.)

And really, that's just me. So few people keep real statistics on this stuff that it's hard to know.

So the next question should be, am I an average baby-neopro? Not having come from publishing (nameless pro who, in my first year, told me she just hadn't ever really gotten a rejection), not having written a story a week (Jay Lake), and not being one of those people who rarely/never solicits for work (Scalzi), I can say with certainty I'm not ABOVE average. And I would argue that I'm not too terribly far below average, either, though I'm not sure where we draw these lines. When I look to people who seem just a little ahead of me in the race, both in terms of success and time spent on the track, I feel like I'm mostly on pace. Maybe a little slow, but still in the race.

Now, I'm well aware that the world is rife with exceptions--for years, Yoon Ha Lee sold only to F&SF, for example, which is one of the toughest nuts to crack, and yet, was the only nut she cracked--but I'm not talking about the exceptional cases. I'm talking people like me, the ones who came in a bit blind and have only what they read on the InterTubes to guide them.

All those caveats in mind, I submit my current theory: "At or around ten percent." And I'm sticking to it. I tend to think that the quality of that ten percent goes up as you improve and get some name recognition, but if you're neither a breakaway pop star nor seriously deluded about your ability and/or professionalism, I suspect you'd not be far off from a ten percent success rate.

Another Rejection

Late-breaking rejection from Writers of the Future, this time with actual statistics on what being a quarterfinalist means! I've only been wondering since, oh, forever. (It means top 10-15%. Which means I get rejected from WOTF like I get rejected from nearly every other market.) There was an additional hand-scrawled exhortation to "Send more!" which was new, but maybe not preciously unique.

I've been living a quiet life of no desperation this week, planning my attack on a novel in January. Time to start living that life I've always imagined, and that life is one of novels. Basically, it's a "time to do this thing, now" moment, and with a little strategy, I may even be able to follow through on that.

In addition, having duly noticed and then backed away from a half dozen internet slapfights which are on subjects that I really don't think need to be discussed with this vociferousness, I have decided that I don't want to live front and center of the blogosphere after all. I'm keeping this journal for myself and the few faithful--not to entrance the masses. This was an important thing for me to figure out... eight hundred entries into it.

Vacation Begins

Two rejections this week, one from Cicada, one from Strange Horizons. The Cicada one was startlingly fast, so I didn't know how to take that, except in the spirit of, "Well, at least there was little time wasted." As for SH, one out of three editors liked it, and Jed voiced an opinion that I think is actually a valid critique that, if fixed, might indeed make the story stronger--so I'll go from there.

My plan today is to get both of the rejected stories back out, though finding e-sub places that aren't closed that are in the top 10% of my sub-list for each of the stories might be a challenge... And to at least write the query letter for an apparently lost sub... and to write at least a chapter of something. I have a couple somethings in mind, but I'm about to go downstairs and do chores for a few hours, and see what that gets me... some nice, empty-thought hard work to do brain work in is always good. And if that doesn't work, I'll go for a walk.

Non-Rejections

Oh, dear. I'm going to have to make some queries, soon. If I'm lucky, there will be the "oh, our rejection got lost in the mail" sorts of answers, instead of, "Submission? What submission?"

I hate querying far more than I hate getting rejections.

Rejection...

One speedy rejection from Fantasy and Science Fiction--form, not personal.

I'd say about every tenth rejection or so, I get really bummed out with the whole process. I think thoughts like, "Well, I'm just going to write and write and write and not try to sell any of it. Really."

And while there's nothing wrong with that--in fact, given that I don't feel that I write much in the way of deathless prose these days, I wonder if it wouldn't be doing myself and the world a bit of a favor. I've been born into an era where books lie thick on the ground, and the whole notion of writing because no one else is writing the kinds of things I want to read is silly. I just finished the latest Tamora Pierce book today... and this marks something like twenty years of her giving me exactly what I want to read. (I found In the Hand of the Goddess when I was eleven. It was an extremely formative moment.)

Okay, clearly, there's a bit more self-pity and self-doubt going on in the preceding period than is seemly... I don't suppose it's a coincidence that it ties in quite nicely with no longer having anything coming down the pipe (or is it pike? Weird... I can't remember) except a lone reprint next March.

Well, here's the thing... you can't get anyone else to shine a torch down into the dark culvert of self-pity to any real effect. The angle is all wrong. You're just going to have to learn to make fire by striking two stones together.

And by "you," I mean "me."

Off to find a flint...

PS: Anghara said quoted it very well today:

"If you really want to do this for a living, no one can stop you. But if you don't really want to do this for a living, no one can help you."

Rejection, and Life Goes On

116-day rejection from Asimov's. Onward... and onward.

My brain says it's Friday, though the calendar is quite certain it's not. It's a smidge confusing, because I think I haven't blogged in a week, when it's only a mildly embarrassing few days.

I must say that I no longer fully grok the purpose of my blogging-about-writing; I don't have pithy sayings or lengthy screeds or much of anything useful to say about craft. I barely have a point of view on many of the things that get other writers frothing at the mouth. It's probably past the point of being useful or interesting to watch me flail about. And yet, if I ever *do* find a direction for the whole gig, it will have been nice to have a few hundred entries from which to plot trajectory, so I guess I'll keep on.

I suppose the smart thing to do would be to use the blog to polish areas of writing I'd like to improve upon. Like learning to capture the whats-it I have that allows me to tell a lively story in person that falls flat on the page.

Something to consider, anyway. 'Scuse me, I must go pet my story, and tell it that there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

Various Updates

Third time is the charm:

Happy NaNoWriMo to the brave ones. I am not currently NaNo-enabled, myself, but bon chance to those who are.

I've tried to post that twice now, and failed for a variety of reasons...

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Rejections, rejections, rejections. I have a lot of stories to send out on Monday, let's put it that way.

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Me? I've spent the weekend reading and watching Shakespeare. The week was spent reading and sleeping and digging out at work. Not a hundred percent after the week of sick--I get tired pretty easily--but feeling very nearly the thing now.

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Books read of late:

Something Sinful by Suzanne Enoch (67) [romance]
The Rogue's Return by Jo Beverley (68) [romance]
Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn (69) [fantasy]
Billionaires Prefer Blondes by Suzanne Enoch (70) [romance]

As you can see, the romance streak continues. I was so excited to see the new Sam/Rick book that I surprised myself. I *hate* romance sequels. I *adore* this series, though.

Realizing I had an unread Sharon Shinn on hand that didn't involve angels was a treat... I couldn't tell you *why* I don't want to try her angel books, but I just don't. Not even a little. But I genuinely like everything she has written, on one level or another, so I can't quite figure out where my irrational prejudice comes from. Hm.

Though... one minor complaint about Mystic and Rider... the phrase "Senneth smiled" seemed like it was on every single page of the first half. Or if they do, it should be remarked on a few times in passing dialogue (culminating in "Why the hell you smilin' at me again, Senneth, you freak?") and left alone. TOO MUCH SMILING. I almost stopped reading the book at one point, but it did get better from there on.

I do think I need to reread Summers at Castle Auburn... if I could just remember to...

Rejection Junction

Just dug through my SpamBox folder to find a rejection from Interzone. I read the first line--"I'm sorry but we won't be taking..."--with my usual "stiff upper lip, buck up little camper" false complacency, and waited for the disappointment to fade off before steeling myself for the feedback portion of the show. That can always be so... rough. Even when you welcome it, realizing just how badly you've flubbed something is never easy. For me, anyway. Maybe you all are made of different stuff.

But! Gosh, but. It was such a warm fuzzy rejection, I hardly know what to say. I almost feel a little embarrassed that such care was taken of my feelings--"we reject pieces, not writers," and (my favorite part) "while this story did not
win us over, we would definitely see more of your work," and such.

Alas, but since this lingered in my SpamBox for a couple days, I had no chance to resub to them while e-subs are still open. Not that I have anything ready for them. But they've moved to the top of my list through this whole process. WAY to the top.

I loff the loffly Interzone...

Returned, Rejections, Reading

Back from Montana and the parts in between. I got my mountains, which Brook's book needed. I got other things as well... I'd like to do the trip again in a leisurely fashion--I could spend a full day in Badlands, hiking; I'd like to see Deadwood in spite of how hokey it looks; and I could stay a week apiece in Glacier and Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. But, all told, we saw plenty.

Came home to rejections from F&SF and Escape Pod. Onward. Just, not today. Probably not tomorrow, either.

I had something of a break from writing while I was on vacation. It was good I didn't take the laptop, really, because the amount of time it could have gotten conveniently used was negligible. Part of that was due to my traveling companions--my stepdaughter required all the attention I would have devoted to any writing. As it was, I did take notes on a story, sketch the beginning of another, and jot down some good thoughts--stolen moments, here and there. I think the break will last through tomorrow, as I'd very much like to get the house clean[er], and find a way to keep it clean[er].

I did manage to read a bit on the trip, though I haven't finished everything I started reading yet.

The Field Guide by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (41) [children's]

Cute and fast--maybe a little too fast, as I'd sort of hoped this would keep our attention as an audiobook longer than it did. I didn't listen to the rest of the books in the series yet, and I feel that altogether they amount to a whole book... possibly a little young for my stepdaughter based on their length? I don't know. It's so hard to listen to an audiobook and judge what reading it would be like, especially for this age range.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (42) [science fiction]

Really good. The book ate my brain, in all the best ways. My favorite in the Hugo field so far. I may have more detailed thoughts later.

Rejection; Plus, Virtue and Transparency

29-day rejection from Strange Horizons. A bit of a form letter, at that. Note to self: previous publication does not assure future personalization.

On the happier side of things, it looks like not-"Bound by Spells" is now a go for issue #4 of FARthing. I'm enjoying my communications with Wendy tremendously--she has a light touch and yet remains professional. I still, however, dn't really have a title change for her, even though I went to the trouble of going to the bar and brainstorming with some friends.

Yes. Really. That was the reason I went to the bar.

Well, actually, there was even MORE virtue to it, because my attendance there meant some portion of money was donated to 826michigan.

Other writing work I've done:

• Did another pass through of not-BBS, tweaking language and trying to avoid having everyone stand around and look at each other. (Realized on the way home that I could easily turn the story into a screenplay, as it's mostly dialogue.)
• Used Douglas Smith's Foreign Language Market List to wade into the whole foreign markets scene, and ambitiously decided to write a cover letter in French to the French market I'd chosen, and then chewed my fingernails over it for like--well, I'm still chewing my fingernails over that choice. French business letters are so incredibly formal. I'm so incredibly past the point of trusting my written French. My ability to hear and read French is substantially better than my ability to create it.
• Wrote steadily for one hour on "Almanac for the Alien Invaders," attempting to finish the story. Three scenes left, and I knocked most of one of them out at lunch today.

Quite virtuous, no?

Additionally, I got a second email from Interzone about the story that's being held there for a second reading. Jetse described the whole second reading process down to the brass tacks, including the dates that my story will be going around to the second readers (one of whom is the brilliant Ms. Williams). The transparency of the process is lovely, and just the right amount of information. Lord knows I wouldn't want blow-by-blow updates, but just knowing what date I can't possibly hear anything before is comforting.

So, rejection aside, it's been a pretty good day.

Is this the end?

I love Duotrope's Submission Tracker so much that it may be about to supplant my stats page in my heart. We'll see how long I happily maintain both before it becomes old hat. (I would probably keep up the scoreboard and do away with the monthly chart before giving up the project entirely.)

Of course, this is a free service being run out of the goodness of someone's heart (at the root of it), and of course, they take donations. Apparently, if everyone who used the service donated, it'd only cost about $4 a year per person--and I feel like I've already gotten $4 of use out of it this week alone--so I'm on board with donating. (The Theme Calendar alone may be worth it!)

And since stats reporting is the bread and butter of good rejectomancy:

Predictive Power

Yesterday I wrote: Either my response got lost in the spambox, or they're actually considering the story.

And today I got a note that said they are actually considering the story.

So. Rejectomancer 1, Universe's Perverse Sense of Humor 0.

Well, that's today's score. It's really more like, Rejectomancer 1, UPSoH 3,847.

(Have you ever noticed that numbers ending in seven are funnier?)

I think I've got a new title for this blog, by the by... The Rejectomancer.

This is the way we rejectomance...

So, I'm a few days late in updating my stats page--I'm archiving June and putting a fresh July on the board.

Here's how it goes.

First item on the short story list was "Bound"--my shorthand for "Bound by Spells," which won't, of course, be called that in the end. It's satisfying to take it off the tally board, yes, but it's always a bit sad to bring down the "sold!" signs. On the other hand, "Bound" has been on and off the board since June of 2004, though it hasn't been to all that many markets really. The time it spent off the board, it was being rewritten--mostly, anyway, though I did hit that one period of depression where I thought no one anywhere would ever get the story, and it spent one sad month in the trunk before I gave myself a talking-to.

Buh-bye, "Bound." Your position at number one will now be taken by "Library"--shorthand for "The Library Seed," which has been to hardly any markets, and has a semi-storied history. Or, as storied as it gets for an unpublished short story written on spec by a neo-neopro. It was Kelly Link's Editor's Choice at the OWW, something I keep failing to put in my cover letters. And by failing, I mean, "am slightly unsure if I should include that or not." Anyway. Its rejection slides off the board, and its slot is all pretty and pristine now. Each submission is a fresh start.

"Lonesome"--code for "The Lonesome Dark"--moves to slot two. I had a response from the editor at some point that was half acceptance and half rewrite request, but since resubmitting have gotten no new feedback. I should query again. I'm a bit of an idiot for not having done so sooner, but I didn't want to be a goof. I know slushers at that mag, though, and keep thinking I should ask them, since if my mail isn't getting through... I didn't want to be a pest, and I didn't want to get a rejection, and now it's six months after my last query, and I'm not a rejected pest, but I am a moron. Resolved: query tomorrow. If no answer this week, ping the slushers I know.

Item three is "Souls"--"Souls on a String." Now we actually get into the science of rejectomancy. Right-click on that link to the Black Hole and choose "open link in new tab." (Or "window" if you're not a Firefoxian.) I know "IZ" has a rather lengthy average turn-around on the Black Hole, but Jetse de Vries seems to get stuff done rather more quickly these days, and my earlier opinions about "IZ" have been overwritten, so I click through to the data. 'Kay, my sub was on 5/29, and the last sub on the list was on 5/25. They got a response by 6/24. By that logic--and the logic of the last few rejections on the list, I should have a response by now.

Either my response got lost in the spambox, or they're actually considering the story, but I won't actually consider querying for another month. Probably not for two months. I find the stated response time and the Black Hole average and pick some time semi-related to those periods and query based on that. There's a sliding scale involved, of course. I also check Rumor Mill topics and other forums before querying just in case that there are some circumstances at play. But in this case, I'll give it another two months first. And I'll probably get a rejection tomorrow, because that's how these things work out 90% of the time.

I have to think about "Sun" even less. "Sun" is code for a variety of titles, my favorite being "Sun's East, Moon's West," but I've had others because I keep hearing no one likes my title. Oh, well. Anyway. Off comes the rejection. Clean as a whistle. Won't even think about getting antsy here. I just sent it off in June, and for this mag, the stated response times aren't.

Now--"Tertio/PP" is code for a story with a similarly changeable title which was the flash version of a story I don't know how to write as a short story. I sent that to the Interfictions anthology. Their guidelines say something like "you'll hear something after July 2006" and it's not after that yet. So--I expect to come home from vacation to a response. Naturally, I expect rejection, but that's because it's a smarter thing to do than expecting a sale. Also--I'm not sure I know what interstitial means. I was rather thinking format, not content, when I submitted there. Hm.

Finally, my submission to A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, which is rather a one-off sort of thing, but I'll certainly count it in my stats. Honestly--besides the subject matter, which is awesome--it was the payment terms that deeply attracted me to the anthology. Besides the $.01 a word and the copy of the anthology, authors will be paid with "a certificate conveying lifetime membership in the Surreal Botanists Association." Anyway, there's no querying on that (sez me), and I can only hope that if rejected, said rejection comes soon so that I can make another submission before the reading period closes...

All right. The stats page is now clean. Reset all counters to 0... And on to the rewriting, so I can have something in the new subs column. I am all ready to take my two most recent stories by storm, and I think there's an older story lingering in the rewrite folder that I might be able to do justice to now. Or is there a statute of limitations on rewriting? Do stories between draft 1 and draft 2 ever go stale?

We'll find out.

Rejection Junction

Tidy blue form of death from the place that sends blue forms of death, Realms of Fantasy.

I can't say I'm actually a fan of the blue/yellow signalese, if only because it feels like having your toenails ripped off to go from yellow form of promise back to blue form of death.

Okay, not really. It's more like having a hangnail on your little toe. Which I had a few weeks ago. It was really annoying when I got into bed, but mostly ignorable.

I was tempted to rewrite, but only briefly. Unasked for rewrites are the mindkiller. Plus, this story was an Editor's Choice on the OWW and was workshopped at Milford. It is quite literally as good as I could make it six months ago, and while my skills have improved in six months (it almost makes me cry to think of how much my skills improve in just six months), it's not time yet.

Can't Leave Well Enough Alone

In case you were curious (and why wouldn't you be?), my writing stats are now at stats.merriehaskell.com instead over on my other website. This is to further differentiate Merrie Haskell from the other Merries I might be at any given moment (though I'm still not sure it's necessary, but you say "hobgoblin of little minds" and I say "reassuring." But we both mean "consistency.")

Now, to be inconsistent, I want a comfort read, but I want also something that surprises me totally. I may have forgotten enough about Northanger Abbey for this to suffice; it is the only Austen I have read once, but therefore, it's not really a comfort read. I don't believe I've had this particular itch before. Hm.

Rejection Junction

Very speedy rejection from Aeon on "Sun's East." I loff the loffly Aeoners; they send very nice rejections.

I have been working hard on a short story since Friday; this is my new promise to myself, that I will not write short stories over a period of weeks/months/years, but rather, days. The statistics show that this is how the good stuff gets done, anyway. Everything I've sold was drafted in either one sitting or two. And honestly, looking at the graveyard of stale stories on my hard drive, letting things sit for months is a good way to fail to finish stories.

For me. Of course for me. I don't speak for others.

Interesting outlier, though: looking over the stories I have in circulation right now, easily the best one was written over a period of several months, but I'm going to call that the exception that proves the rule.

Ultimately, I'm hoping that finishing a short will give me the courage to get back into The Bitter Road. Julie fixed me with her eagle eye today and said, "So, do you think because you've promised yourself that you're done with this book after this draft is why you can't finish it? Because you can't let go?"

She knows me so well.

The good news is, mostly when I acknowledge a problem, I'm able to overcome it. And I acknowledge I have a problem here. This draft was supposed to be done two months ago.

Okay. Back to work.

Rejectomancing

One good reason to keep writing rejection & acceptance stats: if you're diligent about updating them (as I usually am), it's a great reminder to get in there and resubmit. To whit: I jumped into my stats page today to do some updating, and decided to find new markets while I was there... and since both were taking email subs at that time, I managed to send the stories out within a half hour of opening up Dreamweaver.

It's nice to realize you have a system, even if it's through no fault of your own.

The one thing I wish I were tracking more carefully is the "which market has story x been to?" stat. I have a spreadsheet, but it gets updated with much less diligence than the webpage, and I don't actually love how the spreadsheet works. The spreadsheet was an upgrade from the paper notebook, actually, so things are better, but what it comes down to is that I have to track information in two places to make it work. So, when I find myself wondering, "Did I already submit 'Sun's East' to Aeon?" I can either rely on the imperfectly updated spreadsheet or do a quick search 'n' scan of my stats archive.

So. As with so many problems, once articulated, I have a better handle on said problem. And yep, the real problem is dual information tracking, so asking for submissions tracking software suggestions as I was planning to do would be pointless. The second real problem is that spreadsheets don't cut it. What I really need is a sweet little relational database that tracks that one extra variable in a way that's not cumbersome. Hm. Sounds like a good way to get in some extra cat-waxing to me...

Rejection Junction

Two rejections today, no acceptances.

I already wrote this entry once, but I apparently failed to save it. Anyway, it was me wondering if it was worthwhile to send these stories out yet again--do they have what it takes?--and me deciding that yes, it was ultimately worthwhile. It was a very dramatic entry. I'm sad it's gone.

But it is, and I don't know how to recreate it. *weeps*

Rejection Junction

One rejection of the "we're not open to submissions at this time, please check [utterly illegible] for calls for stories" sort. Hm. Such things are not indicated in their guidelines, so I really don't know.

Which is alright*, since I was ambivalent about subbing there anyway.

* I defend the use of "alright" since "altogether" is the same composition and has long been accepted as a viable composition for "all together." So. There's my snarky, defensive two cents on that one.

Phoo.

A very quick rejection of meaningless courtesy on "Souls."

I was kind of hoping they'd keep it a while so I didn't have to find another market. And so I didn't have to have the "throw in the towel on this one?" internal debate. It's a story that was as good as I could make it when I wrote it; it's a story that I can't write better right now. Is it as good as my vision? No.

But really, those answers being what they are, I should keep submitting it.

So. Onward.

*blink* Rejection...

Oh, yes, I have a journal! Right. All is not Farscape and "getting better." (Though I am getting better. I'm mostly better, except for that early morning coughing thing. I realized I was better enough to start writing again several days, but I all the writing I did this week was on breaks at work. I blame this on a combination of weak will and Ben Browder.)

Rejection from Aeon, but they did let me in on the "secret handshake" that means I can sub electronically to them. That part didn't suck.

Rejection

Speedy rejection from Baen's Universe . I'm losing faith in my rewrite of this story--revised version is not getting passed out of slush as often as original. Worrisome.

The question for the evening: speed on to the next chapter, or go watch the Project Runway finale? Hm. Maybe if I take my notecards downstairs with me...

Learning Curves

Something that occurred while commenting in Hannah's journal:

Some of us, while going through their first year or two of submitting stories and novels, have to learn about

1) writing
2) marketing ourselves
3) professional standards
4) how to take rejection

all at the same time.

People who've had sales experience or similar things get to eliminate number 4 right out of the gate, and maybe number 2, also. People with previous experience in publishing get to eliminate anywhere from one to four of those items right away.

It's something to consider, if you're in your first year. There's a learning curve for each one of the things on that list. It's number 4 that's nearest and dearest to my heart, because I think number 1 is a life-long quest, and number 2 and 3 can be empirically learned: there are right and wrong answers there.

In what I now realize was my quest to learn about rejection, I surveyed any author I could get to talk to me (usually by commenting on their blogs) to ask how many rejections they'd gotten before making the first pro sale. At least one of them, whose first novel had just come out and had a dozen short story sales, said "Oh, I sold my first short story to a pro market." Which made me slink away to a quiet little corner to wonder why I was on rejection 25 with no acceptances whatsoever, pro or otherwise.

I forgive her the callous moment because she very likely didn't know she was being callous; she'd been working in publishing for years, and probably had no clue that anyone seemingly in their right mind would be taking rejections personally.

My heroes are the people who keep going after two hundred rejections and no sales. I got my first acceptance on number 27, about 9 months into my first year; I got money for the first time after rejection 40 or so, right at the year mark; I hit pro after rejection 60-something about a year and a half after I began submitting. With time and perspective, I see that this was lucky-early. It felt agonizingly long. Agonizingly. And rejections hurt back then. I took the first one with good grace, as I recall, but by number 10, I was squirming.

Part of it comes from having lived a life free of rejection. I've never been involved in sales. I've gotten almost every job I've ever applied for, and the ones I didn't get, didn't bother sending me a rejection letter. I got into all my colleges but one--that rejection reduced me to tears, and in no way prepared me for the upcoming writerly battle with rejection, ten years later. Even on a social/romantic level... I'm a woman. Most heterosexual women don't (or didn't, in my day) have to go a route that risked rejection in order to date.

Yeah. So, factor in everything else you have to do in Year One, and then factor in learning to take rejection. Something to think about if you're planning on taking up the writer's life.

Fretting, War

I feel like I got a rejection that I forgot to report. *fret*

I also had a vague pang of worry about a rewritten short I sent back to the editor, and when I checked, learned I'd failed to put it in proper manuscript format. *fretfretfret* I'm not even sure what to do--but I guess I'll risk being a pest and resub it properly.

I sent one sub to a wrong address. *minor fret* (Thank goodness for email bounce notices)

It's almost as if I'm sabotaging myself.

***
Brief thought about war...

I spent an awful lot of time writing about war in college, and thinking about it before and since... I always angled my anthropology papers towards the origins of war and similar topics. For someone who's never had the barest of intentions to be involved in a war or the military, it seems to take up a large part of my brain... I don't identify particularly with Iraq as 'my' war(s), even though it is (generationally speaking; Vietnam was over before I was born, and WWII was my grandparents' war). If anything, I think of my war as the one that didn't happen in the '80s--the nuclear war that always felt imminent during my childhood.

Something about the threat of that kind of war--the "annihiliation of civilization" kind of war--makes other kinds of war bearable. Understandable, even. And almost impossible to bring to a personal level, especially since no one I've loved or even anyone I've known has ever gone off to war in my lifetime. I feel like there's something essential missing from my understanding of war, like I've over-intellectualized it. Hm.

A link:
Young People and Nuclear War

A further thought: while I stopped dreaming about nuclear war on a regular basis sometime after the Berlin Wall fell, I don't think I felt I'd really moved past it until I wrote "Reparations." How bizarre.

Rejection. Reminders. This is a boring entry.

Rejection. *sigh* I really wonder if I'm going to actually sell this bloody story. But what's 10 rejections among friends?

Well... it's not getting sold to a SFWA-eligible market, that's what. Not that this is my main goal, mind you, but I do have my sights set on getting paid for this one.

Ah... 10% of my rejection-total has been lavished on this story, which I blindly still believe is one of my better efforts.

And with this rejection, I bring you the stunning (and unrelated) reminder to vote in the Strange Horizons Readers' Choice Poll. If you can't think of any other reason to do so, you should know that you'll be entered in a drawing for Amazon gift certificates. Reason enough to vote! I bet people would actually vote in the presidential elections if there was a chance, say, that you wouldn't have to pay taxes for one whole year!

Also, I'm eligible for the Campbell Award this year, though voting for that requires you to be a member of a WorldCon one year ahead or one behind, and there's no drawing for it either. Not that my vote-begging matters: there's absolutely no chance that I've had even 1% of the exposure I'd need to even make the shortlist. But there is always next year... Now, how to create a media blitz off of one pro short story sale?

*crickets chirp*

Riiiiight.

Rejection as a Service: Not Quite A Utopian Notion

I have certainly read (or imagined I've read) a comparison of the writing trade to a more traditional sales setting (think vacuum cleaners or magazine subscriptions). There's lots of jibberjabber about cold calls and percentages... and writing on spec is basically making a cold call, though if you do your market research, you find your audience more easily, and blah, blah, blah. I'll assume this is known. I'll assume that if it's not known, the conclusions are easily drawn. I'll also assume if it's really not known, I may some day write a tidy little essay about it, even though I've never actually been a cold-calling saleswoman--except when it comes to hawking my stories.

I say all of this to set the scene for the next part. Call that last paragraph "bad exposition." On to the next paragraph.

Today at work, I was opening the mail and happened across a cluster of ALA forms that all said "Sorry, non-circulating item." In other words, I opened a big pile of rejection letters. And I did feel a very minor rush of disappointment, even though I wasn't the person who even sent the requests to this distant library, for no other reason than... it was a rejection. And because I knew how much work had gone into figuring out this particular library owns the item in question, and because I also know how unlikely it is that another library will own it. An ALA form is a paper form, which means it's often a request of last resort in this electrodigital age.

Beyond recognizing that rejection feels like rejection feels like rejection (especially if you have become attuned to it by attempting to become a professional writer), I realized part of the reason we don't freak out over rejected ALA forms in my library is because no, we don't have much personal attachment to the request. For one thing, we're not trying to sell, we're trying to obtain; for another, we're doing it as a job, not as an artistic endeavor. But the other reason is volume. We do thousands of requests a year--tens of thousands, and requests are filled and requests are unfilled and requests are lost. Individual patrons get very wrapped up in their one or two book orders, but the power patrons who order dozens, if not hundreds of items a year... don't.

There's no question that rejection gets easier the more you have of it. It is not something that gets easier with time, unless you fill the time with the getting of rejections. There is, in fact, a volume discount on pain, and I think the writers who have said that they never ever once even thought about taking rejection personally either have gotten their volume discount a different way (telemarketing? lots of bad dates in college?) or are very, very good at separating the process of marketing/publishing from the process of creation.

Anyway, as I was scribbling a note to the person who had to take care of the ALA rejection, I had this not-so-brilliant flash of inspiration of creating a writing cooperative for people who are having a hard time with rejection. Basically, you turn over your finished short stories to the cooperative, and then the next person in the cooperateive queue would read a story, pick the next five markets for it, and send out copies of your story to each market in turn (and never once tell you about any of the rejections). Repeat with the next person in the queue until there is a sale or a year has passed. If a year has passed, the author gets an opportunity to rewrite (or not) and resubmit to the system. The key is, no one gets to remove a story from the system for more than two weeks every year (the optional rewrite period), and no submission stays out of circulation for even a day, until five years or a sale.

Now, there's a lot NOT to love about this system (lots of rules would be required, and no good way to enforce them), and I don't actually have any interest in forming such a cooperative. (Especially once I remembered there's another word for someone who sends out stories on your behalf: agent. It's just, agents don't usually do short stories, unless you're like, Stephen King, and maybe not even then.)

But... beyond that, I think if you made such a resolution for yourself--that you would go to a happy place once you saw a rejection letter and then just drop into automaton overdrive until the story was back out the door--and then allowed yourself to grieve, I bet you would a) find less interest in grieving and b) you'd accomplish all the same goals without relying on someone else.

I don't feel quite the need to do such a thing, since I don't think I've grieved over a rejection in, oh, 25 rejections or so (75ish was truly a magic number. That was when I stopped filing my rejections by story, and instead just clump them all in one mass rejection folder. Maybe it was before that. I guess the magic number is when you forget to count, unless you have a running tally somewhere). I occasionally get a little peevish when I think an editor has totally missed the point of the story and rejects it for being the exact opposite of what I believe the story wanted to be... but peevish is a far cry from depressed. And peevish usually affects my work in a good way ("I'll show them!").

So, basically, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before. Good job, me.

Rejection Junction

Rejection 101, on "Sun's East," which was temporarily retitled to try Realm of Fantasy again. It got a better reception this time; a Yellow Form of Promise from the new slusher: a marked improvement from the Blue Form of Death. I am naturally disappointed, not because it was the last pro market available to me on this story, but because for every market that rejected it with a "not quite our thing, try Realms," I foolishly got my hopes up.

And... does anyone know what's up with Storypilot? It's been down all day, perhaps longer. That makes it hard for me to plan my turnip-assault on the semi-pros. I of course also use Ralan's site too, but I like to check both.

Rejection is Inevitable

It's sort of been rejectomancy week fortnight around these parts, with Rejection 100 and The Rejection That Happened Twice. Allow me to perform a trifecta.

...Meanwhile, back at my day job, I was checking in books. It happens, in a library. You work there long enough, and you're bound to circulate something. Anyway, I checked in a book and was intrigued enough by the title to browse through it. (Not intrigued enough to remember the name, but that's a different story.)

It was a book on entrepreneurship. And I flipped to a part that said something to the effect of:

Rejection is inevitable. The only thing you can change about rejection is
your attitude.

---

In the meantime, I'm off for ConFusion tomorrow. I hope to at least wave at Toby with more words than I used last time, and otherwise, hang with Elizabeth and Julie and Julie and some multi-generational Klechas. Panels? Okay. I might attend a panel or two, even. And, as always, stalk Scalzi. Though I'd like it noted for the record, I am not the one who invented the Stalk Scalzi game. And also, it's not a very good game, since he always posts his con schedule on his website. And they print where he'll be in the program guide.

So, much like rejection, Scalzi is inevitable. The only thing you can change about Scalzi is your attitude.

*waits*

Okay. Yes, that was the lamest callback ever. I'm sorry. I'm trying to write this and pack at the same time.

Rejection 100!

Rejection 100 just came in from Fortean Bureau!

I just wanted to say thanks to the rejecting community at large. I couldn't have done it without the help of slush readers all over the world. Special gratitude to John Joseph Adams, whose rejections have always been most timely, and to Karen Meisner, whose rejections have always been extremely helpful. And thanks to Ellen Datlow, who liked but never loved a single one of my stories; those rejections always made me laugh. And of course, thanks to Jeremy Tolbert, who provided rejection 100 (and my first semi-pro sale, too).

Thanks also to (in the order they first rejected me):

(email)
Katherine A. Patterson
Debi Orton
Robbie Matthews
Phil Adams
Jeremy Tolbert
Peter Padraic O'Sullivan
B. Rosenberger
Amber van Dyk
Rebecca Shelley
Susan Marie Groppi
Gabe Chouinard
Megan Powell
Robin L. Weston
Meagan Church
Gene Stewart
Jennifer Michaels
Gill Marshall
Lon Prater
Vestal Review Editorial Team
Brett Alexander Savory
Michael Kelly
Stephanie Ann Johanson
Christopher East
Matthew Kressel
Jeremiah Sturgill
Stephen Eeley
"The Editors"

(paper)
John Joseph Adams
Gerald Fleming
Marianne Carus
Ellen Datlow
"Judy, Contest Administrator"
The Fiction Editors of On Spec
The Blue Form of Death (i.e., Carina Gonzalez)
"Rachel, Contest Administrator"
Christopher M. Cevasco
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams
"The Editors"
Stanley Schmidt

Your timely rejections meant that I was free to submit the stories elsewhere, and in some cases, sell them. Thanks to you, dear rejectors, my story did not sit in limbo until I was forced to withdraw it. You actually sent me a letter! And I still have it!

Thanks also to the slushers who slushed anonymously, and either signed their bosses' names or passed me up to their managing editors; in some cases, I don't even know your names. I'd offer to buy you all a drink, but man, there's like, a hundred of you. Woe unto me if you took me up on the offer. But I will bake you a pie. If you come to Michigan. In August. Which is raspberry season. Because I only make raspberry pies.

Think on it!

You can't reject me, I withdrew!

Go figure. I got rejection number 99 twice.

Well, not really.

See, this is all because I decided at some point that it didn't matter to me, statistically speaking, if a story didn't sell because it was rejected or because I withdrew it from the market. It's all the same thing in the wash: "we didn't like your story enough to publish it," or "we didn't like your story enough to tell you we didn't like it. Nor will we respond to your queries." And there were those iffy areas like OMG, hard-drive crash, all submissions lost, resubmit!--is that a withdrawal? No. Is it a rejection? No. So really, I haven't got 99 rejections--I've got probably 85 rejections and 14 Other Things.

Like today. I think a withdrawal that someone rejects definitely should be classified as "Other Thing."

The happy news in all of this, of course--is that it's the story I just sold to Escape Pod. So, the rejection letter mostly just evoked peals of laughter from me.

*sigh*

Timing

(glances at the calendar)

So, I've pretty much got it down pat on when-to-query. And that's "when I feel comfortable."

But when to re-query?

Keeping in mind that I tend to think of thirty days as a magical sort of number for querying--whatever the response time is advertised, plus thirty days (or sometimes a multiple of thirty days, depending on the length of the advertised RT)... I'm still not sure.

Thirty days from my original query?

Thirty days from the response to the query?

Thirty days from the date they said they thought they'd have a decision in the response to the query?

I don't like the last one. Not in this case, anyway.

Though there's this sneaky bolus of weird brain subroutines--offshoots of inherited martyrdom and passive-aggressiveness, I've no doubt--that suggest if they've lost the submission again, they'll buy it out of guilt. This bolus is about as functional as the reptilian hind-brain when going about one's life, because no one buys stories out of guilt. Er, they better not, or I'll give up all hope, right now.

Mostly because I just don't know enough people in the business well enough to guilt them.

(wonders who might read this and not get it as "humor")

(figures that the chances of making Fandom Wank are still pretty slim, no matter how unfunny I am she is)

(just now realizes that she's talking about herself in the third person in these little asides)

(also wonders who will realize that the quotes around humor are meant to be ironic, not just silly grammar)

(wonders who else agrees that ironic is the over-used word of our time but over-uses it anyway)

(wonders if over-used is really hyphenated)

Making a List... Checking it Twice...

A list of rejections, that is.

This has been the banner year for "almost good enough, but not quite." What a wonderful sheaf of rejections I have! Far better than any other year! Everyone likes what I write, they just don't like it enough! Everyone is fairly certain my stories will find a good home! Just not with them!

I feel like I am consistently the second cutest puppy at the pound.

The good news is, it's a no-kill shelter.

***

I am holding on to no less than three good stories in the hopes that I will wake up with a brainstorm and they will be great stories once the brainstorm has passed. This, of course, is one of the biggest lies one can tell oneself, but I'm telling it to myself every morning.

The thing is, I believe I know the problems in 2 of the 3 cases--wordiness. I think I could cut 10% out of each story and they would be lean and mean and much more saleable. Only, I can't find that 10% to cut. I managed to cut... 2%. I have print-outs of the MS, so I just need to go through with a red pen this weekend (read: tomorrow), and send the things out on Monday, but I've been saying that for at least three weeks now.

I have fallen into one of the deadly writerly traps, and that is the trap of sitting on one's inventory.

I sort of want to make a tritely cute list of the Seven Deadly Writer Sins now, but I'm not sure I can come up with seven, and if I did come up with seven, would they be conclusive?

But. Nevertheless, I will try. It's too early to go to bed, anyway.

1) The deadliest writer sin is the Wannabe sin. "I could be a writer if I just had time." (Oh, yes? What makes you think I have the time?) "I was very good at writing in high school/fifth grade/in utero." (Lovely, but what have you written since?)

2) Then we have the Buttinchair sin. One is a steady writer when one sits down. But that happens once a month at best. (Little known fact: this sin is actually not one of willpower but of having had the magnets in one's ass installed backwards. A writer's chair, as we all know, has special magnets in the seat. So does the writer's ass. Sometimes we get the installation backwards. Repolarization is possible, but every day you spend improperly polarized is a sin. Remember that.)

3) The sin of Inventory-Sitting is what I'm currently experiencing. I have good stories, but I'm not circulating them because I have the inane fear that I will burn a good market on a good story, get rejected and then have no place else to send the story in case I somehow manage to perform the right magical incantation to turn said story into a GREAT story. This is a huge steaming pile of bullshit, and even my cats are mad at me about this.

4) Another sitting sin: the sin of Sitting with One's Thumb Up One's Arse. This can manifest in several ways, such as not taking a crit and rewriting a story. Right now, I manifest this sin in that I have a great workshop function available to me, and I've utterly failed to make use of it as much as I should. Why? I can't think of why, except that maybe I'm...

5) Afraid to Take a Criticism. This sin occurs most when we have a little too much invested in a story, I think. We don't want to hear the bad things because it destroys our illusions that we've written a perfect story. At least, I think that's how this one comes about...

6) Taking a Rejection Personally. A sin that is a little too easy when it seems like an editor has deliberately misread one's story, but it's a pointless failing. I don't actually think I've overindulged in this sin lately... lately.

7) Wasting Time Writing About Writing Instead of Writing. Actually, this probably isn't a huge sin, but since it's what I'm doing right now, I thought I'd spell it out for you all. Thus--an abrupt ending to my entry. Cheerio!

Rejection

Rejection on "The Library Seed" yesterday from Ms. Datlow. Short, but personal. At least, I think it was personal. "Interesting, but didn't like it enough" etc.

I have less of an emotional attachment to "The Library Seed" than I do to "Sun's East," and what's interesting here is that a) people like "The Library Seed" better (people in general; so far, not much editorial evidence to base that on) and b) I can handle it better when "The Library Seed" is rejected or critiqued.

There is a big lesson in that on emotional attachment.

Anyway, I'll input my Milford critiques on "The Library Seed" tomorrow night and ship it off to the next market. I'm supposed to have finished at least "Wedding Dress Tea Parties" or "Breakfast at Antigone's" this weekend, but I got really sidetracked by "Getting Pregnant with Strangers"--a Tam Lin retelling provoked by an offhand comment by someone who as yet shall remain nameless. (I'd better send her an email...)

Choices

I got a nice rejection on "Tertio" this weekend, which basically suggested that if I rewrote it to have more story they'd reconsider it. Of course, if I wrote it to have more story, it'd be something completely different. And it also wouldn't be a flash piece (hence my ranting about flash the other day). It would, in fact, be a completely different story--one that I'd enjoy writing, but one that I don't have the heart for right now. And, frankly, it would be a rewrite job of such immense proportions that I'd reshop the whole thing under a different name to all the better paying markets first.

And that is the reality of that.

So, since I didn't rewrite it, I sent it off to another market. Someone out there might still want it as it is. You never know until you try.

Seven more rejections until #100.

Rejection 90

10 more rejections 'til I reach 100.

Time to start planning my 100 rejections party. I've decided it will by BYOR (bring your own rejections) and we shall burn any that need burning. For me, that means I'll be burning my form rejections. Hm... I'm going to aim for early November. This is good. There aren't enough parties between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Or something like that...

Time and Rejection

Where does the time go?

Two rejections this weekend. I've barely been finding the time to blog, so I'm not quite sure where I'm going to find the time to pick markets and do submissions--but it will happen. Even if today is one of those days that I can't quite remember why I do this, it will happen.

New Frontiers in Rejection

There's one sort of rejection I've totally managed to remain ignorant of until recently: reprint rejections. I'm not even sure if I'm going about it the right way, schlepping manuscripts of "Huntswoman" and seeing if there are any takers for the second time around, but I suspect it's the right thing to do... Yet another aspect of the whole business that feels woefully underdocumented when you're first starting it.

Beyond that... you know what I'd like? I'd like some good news to impart here. That would really be nice. So, I guess I'll have to make my own. I've decided that this shall be the autumn of rewriting. Yep, I'm going to get back into the Brook book. I may have actually gotten to the point where I can really understand what my critiquers were saying about it, and to the point where I can really understand what's wrong and what might be right. (How to fix what's wrong and how not to ruin what might be right--well, those are other matters, and I won't claim competency there.)

I start a new job on Monday--not an incredibly new job, but the hours will be quite different, and I believe I have it worked out so that there's a strong hour and a half to two hours of writing time in the morning for me (plus time to walk every day). Exactly how I'm going to do it hasn't yet been decided--walk first, write later or vice versa?--but I'm eager to try writing before I am braindead from working all day, and I'm especially eager to try it after walking, which almost always seems to inspire me. (The only problem with walk-then-write is that I'll have to write in a coffee shop (expensive) or the library (am damned sick of libraries what with working in them all the time).) I'll let you know how it goes, without a doubt.

Successfully Rejected

I've been a-slushing tonight, using our extremely spiffy new submission system at Lenox. It's now got a nice web-based GUI, instead of relying on the vagaries of an email system.

There is a macabre sort of humor to seeing "Submission successfully rejected" pop up when you send a rejection. I make it a policy as an author never to reply to rejections, not even with a thank you; my feeling is, the dialogue is over once I receive the rejection. However, I may be horribly tempted from now on to write back: "submission successfully rejected" on occasion...

Interaction is a-coming

My WorldCon roomie and I are trading hesitantly geeky emails (I, at least, wonder if I'm about to cross the line with my w00ting and the like) and getting generally pumped for the trip.

I'm having a hard time staring down the suitcase, though.

*

In other news, I passed the 100th submission mark today in my glorious two-year writing career. I subbed 4 items today: two reprints ("Huntswoman" and "Heretic's Day Out"; the former I have great hopes for and the latter I was just waiting for the right market), and two originals ("The Lonesome Dark," now with industrial-strength continuity action! and "The Library Seed" which I finally finished rewriting after my wonderful critiques on the OWW, including the Editor's Choice crit from Kelly Link. In honor of that, in fact, I sent it to the magazine Ms. Link slushes for...)

Rejection Junction

Got a "sorry, but send us more" on one story (accompanied by something indecipherably written, but I'm going to pretend it was a compliment), and then a "sorry, but send me more" on another (accompanied by Ellen Datlow's signature, so that's nice), two days in a row. Which means--tonight: market research. In between packing, laundry, cleaning, weeding, writing and feeeling totally overwhelmed by everything.

I'm this close to bailing on WorldCon in lieu of having a mental breakdown.

Something has to get easier Real Soon Now. Other than slushing, which is on hiatus until after WorldCon, in part due to a magazinal hiatus, and a personal one after that (can't really read slush in a foreign country. Not reliably).

Pre-rejectomancy

When my right palm itches, I think "Oh, I'll receive money from writing soon--as long as I don't scratch it." (This is a varation on a rather old superstition.)

When my left palm itches, I think, "Oh, I'll send out a story soon." (ie, get a rejection letter. This stems from the previous superstition--I've made the right hand the receiving hand and the left the giving hand, and I'm not sure that's right.)

When I put a shirt on inside out last week, I thought, "That's supposed to be good luck. I'll make sure to get the story out the door today." I didn't. It was a bad day, and I had no chance to do a final read-through, nor could I get the printer to work. However, I believe the version of the inside-out article of clothing superstition I was most familiar with said that it was more effective if you never noticed yourself that what you wore was inside out... Two days later, I wore a shirt wrong-side out for four hours before Julie pointed it out to me on the way to lunch. I did manage to send out two stories that day.

Superstition: the refuge I flee to when rational processes just don't seem to elicit results.

(I blame most of this on obsessive rereadings of The Luck Book by Maria Leach when I was a child. I also spent many years lifting my feet whenever I rode over railroad tracks. This stopped being feasible when I started driving.)

Slush

• I slush
• I am slushing
• I slushed
• I have slushed

Yes. All of the above are true.

---

Here's what I think today.

There are stories that you read and know in the first paragraph that you can't even think of passing up to the managing editors. And you keep reading, either because you're a nice person or you feel like you have an obligation or you have a rule to read x percentage of the story... whatever. So far, I've never misjudged a story from the first paragraph. But, I haven't done all that much slushing in the grand scheme of things. Oh, no, indeed I haven't. I still wait to be surprised. That's probably the number one reason I keep reading.

There are stories that you read while practically groaning in frustration as the writer painstakingly climbs the mountain slope with competence but without brilliance. Those stories are harder to read than the first kind, and if you're a writer too, you find yourself wondering if this is what you do wrong when you get rejected... and you hope, hope, hope it's not.

There are stories that trudge up that slope with steady determination. An occasional flash of brilliance, perhaps four or five in the entire story, makes you wonder if you're not getting it. But if there is an it to get, it's too hard to find, so you fire up your rejectomator and pray that you don't depress this person too much. After all, theirs was the best story you read all week...

There are stories that make a game effort at the mountain, often with nimble craft-work and nothin' special in the brain-box, or--vice versa, a great concept with a suboptimal execution. Or the third thing in this category, which is when competent stories turn demonic, and what had been an enjoyable read just made you wish for a way to claw your eyeballs out but without permanently harming yourself.

And then there are authors who don't, apparently, understand guidelines, or attachments, and you can't even read their story today because you're just not downloading their mysterious file format and risking a virus, m'kay?

M'kay.

So far, I've not had a "my socks are off" moment from the slushpile. (Again, I haven't done all that much slush.) I have had several really fun moments with stories that charmed me, and it's funny how fondly I think of those moments of charm... I'm sitting here and smiling dorkily at some images that people I don't know have put into my head. I suppose that's the point of all of it, isn't it? I mean, that's the endgoal; to have someone think fondly of your story after it's gone from sight.

I wish there was some way to explain all this to people in rejection letters. But as far as I know, there's not. So, we struggle with a few sentences of explanation, and people on the other end take our letters and sit there and struggle to interpret them. Thus, rejectomancy is born. And since everyone practices a different kind, no one can ever really learn anything about rejectomancy by practicing it.

In other words, I too, have no clue what I'm hearing from a rejection, other than my story isn't going to be published in someone's magazine.

Ah, well.

Predictions

Well, my predictions for the veritable swarm of editorial correspondance I was going to have received by now were sadly off. Responses come in by dribs and drabs, and do not overwhelm me.

Alas.

1 rejection, 0 acceptances this week

I wrote about 3/4's of "The Lonesome Dark" at Writer's Retreat. Hardly a record. But relaxation was probably more important than busting tail, and I held steady at my usual rate of production instead of stunting this weekend. (Stunting in, say, a cheerleader's sense of the word, not as in a discussion of growth.)

I have no idea if "The Lonesome Dark" will end up being half as good as I feel it is right now, but right now, I'm simply amazed. I've never written a story this carefully, with this much control and clear thought and precision--and yet naturally. I don't feel overwhelmed by ideas I can't quite snatch, nor do I feel that I have to try and control every piece of the story from end to end with notecards. The story isn't all there, and I'm uncovering it, line by line... and each line feels crisp, precise, necessary.

When I finish it, will I have any idea of what happened? Why this story, like this, and not in any of the other ways? And will it still seem good at the end?

Dunno. Really not good with the predictions, you know?

Bounce

Bounce on "Bound by Spells." Did not make it out of the slush at F&SF this time. To the grindstone!

(eyes the mailbox with deep suspicion) You're awfully quiet, but for this little outburst. Hm....

News Again

There really was none to report yesterday. Yesterday, I was stalled. On reading and writing. It happens, this time of year with the day-job and all. I need to remember that, and not kick myself too hard when late August and the month of September look bad in the statistics.

But, vacation next week (which is actually pretty untimely for a vacation, but it needed to be taken).

And a multi-paragraph-essay rejection on "Dead of Winter," which was nicely encouraging in general even if rather down on my story... except that I let it make me feel vaguely uncomfortable with sending the story out again afterwards. It made me feel that, yes, your submissions are how people judge your worth as a writer. Yes, if you're sending out less than your best work, they're going to judge you as less than you are. It doesn't matter that it was your best work at the time. It's no longer your best.

I'm trying to figure out where the line between trunking and trying is really drawn.

Quarter Finals

Got a rejection from "Writers of the Future" that said I placed in the quarter-finals. Which led to about an hour of scratching my head wondering what a quarter-final was. Especially since "quarter" appeared in the same sentence twice.

Then I decided to get over it, and get on with the whole Bitter Road thing. There's nothing quite like medium-grade encouraging rejection to galvanize the processes...

Waiting, Waiting

The subconscious knows. Far better than the conscious mind does, anyway. On Tuesday, June 15th will be a week away, and we're both (conscious and subconscious minds) stomping around looking darkly at the calendar and direly at every large bubble envelope we see.

Are they kidding? Are they not sending rejections out on this writing contest until the last week? Until after the winner is chosen and notified (June 15th)? Do they not have rolling rejections? And did no one on the internet enter the contest and blog about it? The Ursula Nordstrom Contest, that's what I'm talking about. I hear nothing. I've got my ear to the ground, and I've heard nothing--heard nothing about anyone entering it, let alone getting rejections yet.

Utter madness. Utterly maddening. They don't post the winner's name until July 1st, but I thought for sure that they'd be sending rejections before June 15th.

Well, they have a week. I'll probably get the rejection tomorrow, and boy won't my face be eggy.

Rejection

I won't mention my first story submission; I didn't even send an SASE out, because I was 15 (or younger), and didn't know. My aunt, when she wrote obituaries for the Midland newspaper, had made a friend, a poet, who encouraged me to submit said story to a certain magazine, but she sorta failed to mention the SASE, or my aunt failed to pick up on it, or maybe I didn't hear the advice...

And that's Rule #2. Rule #1 is finish a story. Rule #2 is the SASE. Even if you write in crayon (not advised), you gotta send the SASE, or you won't hear why they're rejecting your crayon-written story. Right?

I also won't mention how my first actual rejection was from myself, nominally. The double-blind submission process to the high school literary magazine that I edited meant that I never, of course, judged my own work, so I didn't really reject myself. I just happened to be the name on the mast-head, or whatever we had.

I crumpled that up and th