My very first rejection letter!

[rowyn]

How exciting!

"An Old-Fashioned Chat" got turned down by F&SF, in record time. I put it in the mail less than two weeks ago. Wow!

Now I have to decide who I'm going to send it to for rejection next. Hmm. Analog, I think; I haven't sent them anything yet. I'm glad "Chat" got rejected first; "She's Having a Baby" is quite short, and accordingly a little harder to find a market for. At 3,000 words, "Chat" ends up right in the middle of most magazines' "usual range" for story length.

The rejection letter was a bit less formal, and less form-letter-ish, than I expected. It was signed, for example (not stamped) by the editorial assistant, and it had the name of my story in it. Not that this is any more personal than a standard mass-mailing, but I expected, you know, a preprinted "Thank you for your submission. It does not suit our needs at this time" snatched from the stack and stuffed into an envelope. I guess they don't have the kind of volume of submissions that they need to be *that* impersonal.

I'm half-tempted to scan in the rejection to show. :) I'm really tempted to send a different story to F&SF, just to see if I get the same rejection letter.

I'll probably send F&SF another story anyway. "She's Having a Baby", when it gets rejected by Asimov's, maybe. Or if I ever do write something new, I'll send it. If Chang Juan gets her own short story, it'd be fantasy, so I'd likely send it to F&SF 'cause they're the only magazine I know offhand that publishes fantasy. :)

I wonder how long the process of being rejected will continue to amuse me? I have these two big boxes of 9x12 and 10x13 envelopes (for mailing submissions out flat -- the larger envelope so that I don't have to fold the smaller SASE). And a whole bunch of stamps. And I know what the postage cost for mailing "Chat" is ($1.06 for the mailer, $0.83 for the SASE). All I have to do is a new cover letter, mailing labels, and I'm set. I really should buy a new printer so I can do the mailing labels and cover letters at home.

I've been wanting to mail out another story anyway. And now I have one to send! :)

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I got a personalized rejection (handwritten "Alas, didn't quite work for me") from the editor of F&SF back before he got an assistant to read for him. Ah, good times.

One of these days I really must write another short story and kick it out the door!

[rowyn]

Wow! Handwritten. :) Mine was a little typed letter, and "didn't grab my attention". I think "Alas, didn't quite work for me" sounds more heartening. ;)

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[rowyn]

*hugs back*

It really doesn't bother me that the story got rejected. I think after my fifth or sixth rejection, I'll start to feel discouraged. But one? Nah. It's all still new and exciting. :)

What disappoints me much more is that I haven't written a new short story in the two weeks since I sent "Chat" and "Baby" out. I want to have all kinds of balls in the air, before I lose all my momentum in this and give up in disgust. Of course, I have been working on "Prophecy" and "Silver Scales", not to mention the Just Trust Me game, and .... uh ... maybe I should just cut myself some slack. :)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Well, so long as you're amused and not discouraged, there's hope. ;) Please keep at it! Your stuff is good - really good - and it deserves to get more circulation than it gets just here on LJ. =)

[rowyn]

Got the cover letter for submission to Analog printed and tucked in with the SASE, all ready to be mailed, sitting on my desk. Just have to drop it in a mailbox. :)

So I'm not discouraged yet. Now, once Analog, F&SF, and Asimov's have all rejected a couple of my stories, then I'll probably be discouraged. Which is not to say I'll give up. But I expect to be a bit disheartened by then.

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I appreciate your attitude about this. Rejected my story, huh? Well...I'm just gonna send you more! Whatcha think about that?!

Hey, you've got to start somewhere. :-)

[rowyn]

Yup. In fact, I'm starting at the top, with the best-known SF magazines I could find. So I'm hardly surprised that the story was rejected. In fact, I'd've been very startled if it had been accepted. It's a bit like winning the lottery, really. You pay a couple of bucks for postage, and hope that you luck into an acceptance letter and a small prize. :)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! For the will and creativity to send the story off, at least.

I'm fussing with a World Tree story -- very much not Sythyry's -- and hoping to send it out. I seem incapable of writing short, though. Do you know what size of stories magazines are generally willing to tolerate?

[rowyn]

7,000 to 10,000 words seems to be around the typical upper bound, from the guidelines that I've looked at. How long do you run?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, World Tree is a quarter of a million words... But the short story I'm working on is probably going to be, oh, eight thousand. A tighter writer could probably do it in three.

[rowyn]

Eight thousand's not too bad. If you think you can trim it further, I'd recommend doing so, but it'd still be within the bounds of consideration for a lot of print magazines.

The webzines (the ones that will pay you, anyway) seem more finicky about their upper bounds, probably because (a) longer=more expensive, and the webzines are more cash-strapped, plus (b) takes longer to read, and sinxe webzines take electronic submissions, they get a lot more of them than print magazines, I suspect.

[boingdragon.livejournal.com]

You might be surprised by Asimov's - they seem to feature first-time writers often (or at least they did back when I had my subscription). So if they do reject you, they might at least give some constructive feedback as well! }:)

Then again, I've never submitted anything for publication. It was always by accident for me.

[rowyn]

I submitted two stories to Pawprints before! And one of them even got published. :) (The other one was ... er, problematic anyway. There's a reason I haven't tried to get it published anywhere else.)

Anyway, I will be happy to be surprised by Asimov's. But I'm not gonna be particularly surprised or disappointed if they turn me down. :)