8 posts tagged “rejections”

Email back from the Touched by Wonder anthology, to which I subbed A SHADE OF YELLOW:

"After careful review of your work, I have decided to decline.  Though you are a talented writer with a gift for startling imagery, I feel the story is not a good fit for the anthology as it is shaping up to be."

Once again with the "this story has its merits, but it's not right for our anthology."  Most annoying. 

This is my sixth rejection for this story, and I wouldn't be overly surprised if it netted a few more before finally finding a home.  Why?  When the wonderful Katie of Buns read through it for me, she commented on the fact that there's no particular resolution to the story -- and this is something I'm aware of with no intention to change.  To me, the story is a window, both for the character Mari and for the reader; it's a window into a much larger world (of politics etc) that Mari is granted for a few days before it's taken away and her life reverts to normal.  That's all there is to the story.  The only kind of resolution is that Mari realises she's been used, and her perception of the city's current situation has been changed a little.

So it doesn't particularly surprise me when this story gets a rejection.  It's not a standard storytelling format, and I can understand it not working for plenty of editors (or editors feeling it won't work for their readers).  But I like it.  I really like it. And I have no intention to change it, to give it a resolution, because that would mean making it a completely different story and (a) I like it, and (b) I'm lazy.  But mostly it's (a). 

Just means I need to accept that it's going to be a particularly tough story to find a home for.  Oh well.  All a girl can do is keep trying! 

Finally got my letter back from the Sails and Sorcery anthology, which I'd subbed EMPIRES AND GLASS to:

"An exciting, yet painful tale - it's just not quite a fit for this book."

They're not saying it's a bad story, in fact their reaction (the fact they had one, even, rather than just saying "it doesn't fit") suggests that it's a good story, only that it's not a story they want for the anthology.  Which is bloody annoying, though it could be worse. 

Not sure where to send it next.  I'm thinking the Writers of the Future Contest again, to see if I can do even better this time with a story that, I think, is much tighter and stronger than STATUES, but I've not entirely made up my mind.  I suppose my problem with the WotF Contest is that I wouldn't hear back about the story til June, and I'd hate to have it tied up for so long.  But at the same time, the gain I could get from doing well in the contest would far outstrip the happy feeling I'd get from having the story appear in a much lesser place much sooner.  And really, I do have to be a bit pragmatic about this. 

In happier news, I get to read Gilgamesh for my dissertation.  Dude.  I've wanted to read it for a while, and now I have to read it.  Okay, so I don't have to, but as part of my dissertation I'll be considering how Alexander's foray into India fits into a greater ancient tradition of conquest/adventure narratives, and my supervisor mentioned reading Gilgamesh as one of the things in the tradition to compare it to. 

So today:
Writerly World = 1, Alex = 0
Rest of the World = 0, Alex = 1

Karma, people.  She breathes...

Another nice rejection from Sybil's Garage, this one for TANSU:

We enjoyed your story, however, it's not quite right for the magazine.

There's some nice writing and descriptions, and I liked the concept of "furniture magic"--though I thought that it should have been introduced as early as possible in the story (well before page 7). I wish you luck with this piece and hope you'll try us again in the future.

I can see his point about introducing the 'furniture magic' earlier, but the only way I can think of doing that is to cut off the beginning, maybe begin the story as they reach Jamako's house.  While I have considered doing that... I don't know.  I kind of like the start as it is.  Something to ponder, though, while I also ponder where to send this story next.

Both times now I've got this "almost, but not quite there" response from Sybil's Garage, which is heartening but also (obviously) a touch annoying.  They're closing for submissions on January 15th and I don't have anything else I think is suitable, but maybe next year when they re-open I'll have something.

Amusing story from work:  The cute young Shift Running Manager was telling me that Dave, one of the other crew members at work who will at some point in the near future be taking his Floor Manager exam, was considering cheating on his mock.  Aside from the obvious pointlessness of cheating, the cute young Shift Running Manager wanted to know how he intended to do this.  Dave replied that he would type 'AMC exam' into google and see what came up.  Well, cute young Shift Running Manager did this and guess what he found at the top of the hits?  My blog.  Apparently he had an amusing time reading it, and particularly loved my posts about Verity back in the summer.

Tee hee.  I have no idea if he still reads it, or if that's a one-off, but now I have to call him the cute young Shift Running Manager and mention him as much as realistically possible. 

The less amusing part of my shift on Tuesday was scraping ice off my car at midnight while wearing a short skirt and a thin fleece over my shirt and vest.  Knowing my luck, I'll be doing the same thing tonight and tomorrow night too.  Oh joy. 

Writerly Update

Rejection from Shimmer for TANSU.  They said:

I thought the strongest part of the story was the woman's ability to enter the furniture; that's a neat idea, and those passages held my attention very well. But I'm afraid the rest of the story did not live up to the potential of those parts. It all felt rather too convenient.

I'm not entirely sure what's convenient about it.  The only thing I can think of is that they assumed Bunia was the only person with that ability, thus it's convenient she was chosen to evaluate the furniture because she was the only one who could find out the secret.  Which means I'll be slipping in a mention that she's not the only person with this ability.  Other than that, I can't think of anything.  Once I've gone back through the story, I think I'll send it to Sybil's Garage.

I have a feeling that an entry for the Shimmer pirate issue isn't going to happen, but as the deadline is end of January there's time yet, I suppose.  Just that so far I've had the faintest of faint inklings of a plot, and I need somewhat more before I can write it. 

However, I have been working on an entry for the Iris Print 'fairy tales and fantasy' anthology, which has a deadline of 15th January.  Originally I was going to write something that followed on from SNOWDROPS, and some time I might still write the piece, but yesterday I changed my mind.  After having so much fun with the 'Juniper-Tree' fairy tale, I decided I would play around with pre-existing fairy tales / mythologies, and as I've recently stumbled across a literary form called a Triptych (where the story consists of three short stories that have some kind of connection, thematic or character or whatever - similar idea to the art form) I decided I'll tell the story in that way.  So there'll be three stories about relevant parts of the life of Isouso, my main character, and that includes the development of a relationship with another guy.  So far I've drawn on 3 Brothers Grimm tales, and there's a selkie and Baba Yaga too - and it's being wicked fun to write.   Tentative title is A TRIPTYCH.

PA is decidedly on a break.  I don't want to call it hiatus, but it's on a break.  I think I need more time before I go back to it. 

Sex, Money and... what else was it?

The cute young Shift Running Manager also thought my blog needs more sex, money and something else.  Well, can't deliver on the thing I can't remember, and nothing exciting is happening in my bank account (it's positive, hooray!), but I can deliver on the sex side of things.

- Skip the rest of this if you don't care about / don't want to know about my sex life -

So there's this guy I went to Sixth Form with (last 2 years of high school), and from pretty much the first week there's been a bit of sexual tension between us.  It's waxed and waned over the years since, but it's been there, and we made out back in 2004 but didn't do much.  When he came down to Karim's 21st we were flirting, and he offered sex, but I declined (wanted to enjoy the party with all my friends, not with just him), and he kissed another girl (he's a manwhore).  Then, at Andy's party last Friday night, we went back to my flat together and had sex.

And considering the years of sexual tension, and his bragging that he's amazing, it was.... pretty fucking anticlimatic really.  Sure, it wasn't awful, but I suspect that's more to do with me having gone 3 months without before that, so it was like "OMG penis wooooowwww.... that's it?".  I somehow doubt I'll be sleeping with him again. 

Oh, I also kissed a Chinese guy called Kenneth at the same party.  Just a little chaste kiss on the lips, but we'd been sort of flirting earlier, and we exchanged mobile numbers.  I have no idea if I actually want to go anywhere with him, but heh, we'll see. 

That's all!

I didn't even have time to enter it on my spreadsheet or write a post about it.

I submitted A SHADE OF YELLOW to the RLD Anthology early this afternoon, then went out to see the new James Bond movie (which is a lot of awesome), and came back to find a rejection from the RLD Anthology.

Also, my cold has kicked in for some late-night frolicks.

Oh, and I'm going to have to write 4k tomorrow to catch up to my Nano target.  For some funny reason I don't feel like writing now. .... Actually it's more to do with the headache, but yeah.  Urrrgghhh.  Sidenote of greater urrgghh: saw the Eragon movie trailer.  Wanted to die.  Got a funny look from the lady sat next to me for saying "Oh god kill me now."

So I'm going to watch some House on the sofa, curled up under a duvet, and not think.  Then I will sleep. 

Once again I have been double-teamed by rejections: Interzone rejected A SHADE OF YELLOW and GrendelSong rejected THE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION, both form rejections.  Poo on them both, and some other childish curses.  I think I'm going to finally send ASOY to the Red Light District anthology (the thing I wrote it for), but I don't know where I'll send TBC next. 

Partially counter-balancing the bad news, I finally got word back from one of my managers at work that I passed my mock floor manager test.  She'll be sending me some dates for the real thing soon.  Hopefully I'll be able to get it done before I go back at Christmas.  If, that is, I can even remember anything I learnt way back in August/September. 

Got two rejections today.  The most important one was from Apex Digest, concerning A SHADE OF YELLOW.  Form rejection:

"I have reviewed the story but must decline publishing because it does not suit the current needs of our magazine."

While I have no particular issue with form rejections (I understand that some magazines/publishers receive so many submissions that they simply don't have time to write out personal rejections), it's nonetheless a little disheartening to receive no indication of what specifically didn't appeal to them.  My own thinking on the matter is that the submission guidelines do say they like dark scifi, and most stories they buy will be a mix of scifi and horror - and, well, there's not really any horror in A SHADE OF YELLOW.  It's definitely dark, but it's not really horror-y.  Also, I would really classify it as urban fantasy, and while a lot of people will equally happily interpret that a form of scifi as well, maybe this mag doesn't.  Maybe I didn't fit their boundaries quite snugly enough, and the story wasn't exceptional enough to be an exception.

So... whatever.  Or maybe the story's just not good.  But I refuse to be put off, so I'm going to send it away to another magazine, this time Interzone, a UK magazine of science fiction and fantasy.  Apparently they're quite big for a UK mag - I'd never heard of them, but I'd never heard of any of the scifi/fantasy mags so that doesn't really mean much.  Their logged response times of Black Hole and Duotrope's Digest are sometimes quite long, and I have only approx. 110 days until the RLD Anthology deadline closes, but I'll take the chance.  Their recent times are about a month, plus I'm in the UK so there won't be trans-Atlantic postage times, and I can always withdraw the story at the end of February if I have to. 

The second rejection was for SNOWDROPS, a 99-word flash piece I penned a month or so back.  I had an email conversation with one of the editors this afternoon, the ultimate conclusion of which was that the story isn't suited to being only 99 words, but needs to be longer instead - and, as the publication is for flash stories only, she can't take anything longer than 100 words.  So I shall write a longer version sometime, once I've played around with the idea more. 

It's very easy to say that the road to writerly success is paved with rejections.  It's somewhat harder to face that reality, especially when they pull double-team-attacks like today's.  But I'll never become a published author if I don't face that reality, so I shall keep trying.  Eventually I'll get my stories in print. 

This evening I am going to compile a happy-songs playlist (which will be quite short, considering my taste for moody music, but it will be happy!) and then I shall write more of Bunia's journal because it will be supremely more fun than trying to tackle a space battle.  There will probably be some purchasement of chocolate from the supermarket as well because as all girls know, chocolate makes *everything* better. 

Received an email from Sybil's Garage today, rejecting A Shade of Yellow.  The only reason they gave is that it

"felt more like the opening chapter of a novel than a complete short story."

I can understand why they would feel that way, as the story does leave some loose ends open (enough that I am considering writing more short stories in the setting sometime in the future), but I also think it ties up enough to be considered a standalone.  Likely it's borderline, and some magazines will have the same concern as SG while others won't.  As I don't feel I can tell the story in any other way, I'm going to leave the story as it is and hope that I find a magazine in the latter camp. 

SG also said

"Your writing shows a lot of promise and I would encourage you to consider us in the future"

which is almost enough to make me send Tansu their way before sending it elsewhere, but not quite.  If SG is still open for submissions once Fantasy Magazine and Shimmer have rejected Tansu, then I'll send it - but to be honest, they'll probably be closed by then.  Oh well, there's always next year and maybe then I'll have a suitable story. 

I've re-read the two stories and will re-read them once more tomorrow morning before sending them off to the magazines: Apex Digest for A Shade of Yellow and Fantasy Magazine for Tansu.  Hopefully one of them will net a sale.