Now, on with the meat of the blog post. Remember the Smudge story I wrote? The one that took either six or seven rewrites, depending on how you count that last revision?
Well, it got rejected. The editor liked the story, but it didn't fit for the anthology.
Fortunately, she's editing a second anthology, and "Mightier than the Sword" fit well for that one. So the story also got accepted, just not where I expected it to.
This is me feeling awfully lucky. I knew I was having trouble nailing the theme, but I think I would have broken the story if I tried to force it. But if the editor hadn't happened to have this second project going, I'd be in a much lousier mood this morning, trying to find the next market for a quirky fire-spider tale.
It's almost ten years ago to the day that I got a call from Writers of the Future, telling me "Blade of the Bunny" was a first place winner. I remember thinking how I had finally made it, and now that I had that first pro sale, rejections would soon be a distant memory.
Let's just say that the me of today points and laughs at the me of a decade ago.
My Books
(August 2013)
Comments
And who of us - more or less in our right minds - ISN'T laughing at the self of ten years ago !? (or twenty, or thirty, . . . )
I was just telling a friend of mine yesterday how shocked I was when I realized that even mighty professional writers had rejections and doubts and bad days.
We suffered a rejection - "the editor liked the story it just didn't fit for the anthology". Which we considered somewhat of a win. Every little positive thing is a victory.
It's a much more ego-friendly kind of rejection :-)
:) ~GoGo