This Saturday, I hit another major milestone in my development as an author. My first rejection. A while back I had put together a short story and submitted it just under deadline for an anthology themed around the old, weird south. Since I've been living in the south for the last seven years and Florida is nothing if not one of the weirdest places I've ever experienced, I thought I'd have some good material for it.
So, as I was hanging out with some friends that night, I checked my email at one point and saw a message from the publisher. For the first time in recent memory, my heart was racing and felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. I almost put off reading the email until later that evening but the anticipation got to me and I opened it.
And then my heart sank a little. The guy, Tim, was really nice about it and basically just told me that my story fell outside of how the anthology was shaping up. I was a little bummed out about it initially and didn't mention anything about it to my friends that night.
By the next day, my bruised ego had recovered and the experience helped to power me through a 1400 word writing session that afternoon. Now, I'm completely over it and happy to say that I'm doing things that other authors do all the time... hopefully getting published will be next among my achievements.
I'm not sure if I'll resubmit the story elsewhere or just pop it up here. What do you guys think?
So, as I was hanging out with some friends that night, I checked my email at one point and saw a message from the publisher. For the first time in recent memory, my heart was racing and felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. I almost put off reading the email until later that evening but the anticipation got to me and I opened it.
And then my heart sank a little. The guy, Tim, was really nice about it and basically just told me that my story fell outside of how the anthology was shaping up. I was a little bummed out about it initially and didn't mention anything about it to my friends that night.
By the next day, my bruised ego had recovered and the experience helped to power me through a 1400 word writing session that afternoon. Now, I'm completely over it and happy to say that I'm doing things that other authors do all the time... hopefully getting published will be next among my achievements.
I'm not sure if I'll resubmit the story elsewhere or just pop it up here. What do you guys think?
Welcome to the club. :) You've got the right attitude; don't give up.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would like to read the story, my suggestion would be to try more paying markets before posting it for free. Maybe even pub it yourself through Amazon.
Thanks Keith, I'm leaning more towards trying to submit it elsewhere. I've been eyeing a handful of other anthologies but haven't found any that are quite the right fit so far.
ReplyDelete