Aphelion

Got a rejection in the email today, from Mike Resnick, one of the Executive Editors at Baen's Universe, and a well-known author.

This rejection took a whole year to get after being asked for the rtf. More, if you count in the time going back and forth with the group of slush editors, making several rounds of revisions. Then you wait for either Mike or Eric Flint to read them.

If they like it, you get a check from the highest-paying pro SF short story market. The heavens part, and you finally get something that impresses on a cover letter (and maybe lets you skip past the slush readers). If they don't like it, you get an email and a desire to throw yourself in traffic.

I got the email. My second "from the man at the top" rejection from there in the last 2 years.

In Mike's words, my story was ...what I call a "not quite" story: not quite funny, not quite serious, not quite action-filled and it didn't quite grab me...

So, in other words, not quite good.

[long string of swear words] A year's wait for this?? >:(


At least it was another personal rejection and not a form one... That way I know there's yet another big name out there who doesn't think my stuff is good enough. :'(

So to all of you out there, no matter what I might say about your story... just remember that I get rejected, too.

Nate

Rough stuff Nate.

That kind of wait is the killer. "More than a year when you count the slush editors".

Although I still think I'm stronger at longer wordage, I'm at least tapping on the hallowed Aphelion doors with some flash pieces. I hope at least one of them proves worth reading.

Where do you go from here?

I think your Flash Contest piece is just fine. I haven't seen the 2 you did for the Blind Collaboration yet, but I'm sure they'll be good. Flash is a good exercise because it forces one to get right down to the point, down & dirty, so to speak. There's no room for infodumps or long expository passages, just the bare bones.

Where I go from here, I honestly don't know.

The problem has many parts, but number one is confidence, really. I've been rejected a lot over the last 23 years since I started this hobby... this drive... this compulsion... whatever one calls the writing habit once you're hooked. You know, when I was 14 and wrote my 1st novel manuscript, I never doubted once that it would be published. I figured it would be out before I graduated high school. That kind of blissful ignorance of just how hard the process is (and how bad that manuscript was) disappeared for me many, many years ago.

You pass a stage when you stop getting form rejections, and then you realize how much more it hurts when editors and big names stop and tell you in detail how your work still can't cut it. Deep down you know that it's good that you make it past the prelims, but it never feels that way. I know I've got another novel ms. where 2 separate chapters were made into shorts a year apart that made it to the top rung at Baen's Universe before being rejected. I should be happy about that, but I'm not. Oh, I know sometimes it's just not the right market for the story in question... I know all those positive things that I should think, but don't.

For the last several years, I always feel like if this one doesn't make it, I'll finally give this nonsense up, and then I won't send anything else out while I'm waiting. There have been years in there, like this one, where I could only bring myself to send out one story because I dreaded the crushed feeling the rejection would bring. And I know that's bunk. Success will never come that way. You have to keep sending things out, keep writing. But sometimes, I just can't bring myself to. On the other hand, despite whatever rejections come in, eventually, I know I will write another story. (That was one of the things I liked about the Flash Contest idea--it would force me to write something every month.)

Then again, finding a good market that matches what you write isn't all that easy. Ralan's listings of pro & semi-pro are frequently clogged with 'closed for submissions' or 'going out of business' notices. Promising choices are few and far between, and competition is fierce.

So, I guess I do know where I go from here. I have to keep checking Ralan, keep writing, and keep submitting. I just have to actually do that...

Nate