A Week of Writing: 3/21/22 to 3/27/22

Another week of writing. Here’s how it went.

Words to Write By

Today’s quote comes from novelist Jodi Picoult.

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

‒ Jodi Picoult.

This is a pretty straightforward quote, and I’m sure I’ve used it before, but it’s another of my favorites. Get the words on the page, even if they’re terrible. Get the words on the page, even if you have zero confidence in them. Get the words on the page, even if you have to rip each one kicking and screaming form your brain. Do that, and I guarantee that when you come and look at those words the next day, they won’t be so bad, and you’ll have something to work on, something to edit and make better.

Short Story Submissions

Solid work in submission land last week.

• Submissions Sent: 3
• Rejections: 2
• Acceptances: 0
• Publications: 1
• Shortlist/Hold: 0
• Withdrawn: 0
• Pending: 14
• 2022 Total Subs: 27

I sent three submissions last week, which is a good number. The interesting thing is all the submissions were for the same story. I rarely send simultaneous submissions, but this time there just happened to be three appropriate publishers all who allowed sim-subs, so, well, I fired away. The three subs last week gives me 12 for the month and 27 for the year, right on pace for my goal of one-hundred. I might get one or two more out in March, though.

Both rejections were personal, but one was a final-round rejection. I’ll show you that one below.

Dear Aeryn,

[Story Title] made it through to our final round of consideration, but unfortunately it’s not quite the best fit for us in our next two issues, and so we are going to pass on it.  We wish you the best of luck in finding a home for it elsewhere.

Thank you for thinking of us at [publisher] again. We hope you’ll continue to send us more of your stories in the future.

These kinds of rejections are always a mixed bag. One one hand, they’re encouraging because you likely have a publishable story. On the other hand, the sting of disappointment is sharper because, well, you probably have a publishable story. 🙂 Such is the gig. The only thing you can do is what I did–send that story somewhere else.

Publications

I had another publication last week. This time it was with Flash Point SF. You can read the story by clicking the title or image below.

Mixed Signals

The Rejectonomicon

The second volume of THE REJECTONOMICON, my Q&A column over at Dark Matter Magazine, went live recently. You can read it by clicking the banner below.

As always, I need your writing and rejection questions. Here’s how to send them to me.

1. Email your question to questions@rejectomancy.com.
2. Put REJECTONOMICON in the subject line of the email.
3. Write your question in the body of the email. Try to keep it brief.
4. Please let me know if you’d like your first name published along with your question or if you’d like to remain anonymous.
5. Please restrict your questions to the subjects of writing, submissions, and rejections. Those are pretty broad categories, though, and I’d be happy to field questions about my past career as a Tabletop RPG game designer/editor and media tie-in writer.

Got it? Then send me those questions!

Goals

Same as last week: more short stories, more submissions, more work on long-form fiction.

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That was my week. How was yours?