Submission Statement: June 2021
Halfway through 2021 and here’s how I’m doing.
June 2021 Report Card
- Submissions Sent: 11
- Rejections: 7
- Acceptances: 1
- Publications: 3
- Further Consideration: 1
Eleven submissions is pretty damn good, and I’m up to 54 for the year. That’s an average of 9 per month, and a pace of 108 for the year. So all that’s looking pretty good. My measly 8% acceptance rate for the year is, uh, not so awesome, but there’s still time to work on that. Seven rejections in June, an acceptance, a trio of publications, and even a shortlist letter made the month pretty eventful or at least full of variety.
Rejections
Seven rejections this month.
- Standard Form Rejections: 4
- Upper-Tier Form Rejections: 2
- Personal Rejections: 1
June included the usual bevy of form rejections, plus a couple of upper-tier no’s and a very nice personal close-but-no-cigar. I’m sitting on 48 rejections for the year, so I’m averaging exactly 8 per month. That’s fine; I’d just like a few more acceptances to even things out a bit. As I’ve mentioned (complained) in previous posts, 2021 is turning out to be a bit of a down year for me in the ol’ publishing department. I did publish a collection of flash fiction, NIGHT WALK, which has certainly softened the blow some, but I’m struggling more than usual to get individual stories published. The reasons for this are both mysterious and multitudinous, and maybe there’s a blog post in there once I figure out what’s happening (one culprit is A LOT of shortlists).
Publications
Three publication in June. I had a couple of flash pieces published at Wyldblood Press and Flash Point SF and another Rejectomancy article over at Dark Matter Magazine. You can read all three by clicking the links below.
“Rhymes with Dead” at Wyldblood Press
“Giving Up the Ghost” at Flash Point SF
“The Blessed Event or What To Expect When You’re Accepted” at Dark Matter Magazine
And that was my month. How was yours?
A Week of Writing: 6/21/21 to 6/27/21
Last week of June, folks. Let’s see how I did.
Words to Write By
This week’s quote comes from novelist Barbara Kingsolver.
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”
~ Barbara Kingsolver
I think as authors we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what people want. Be it editors or agents or readers, it’s almost impossible not to attempt to mold yourself and your writing into something that meets the expectation of folks reading your work. I’ve been doing that too much lately instead of writing what I’m passionate about, what I actually enjoy writing. I’ve been telling myself things like, “you’ve written about that too much” or “no one wants to read that subject/theme/genre”. So I’m throwing caution to the wind and writing something that, well, feels goofy as hell, but it’s about something I enjoy, it’s about something that resonates with me, and I’m having fun doing it. My hope is that all those feelings translate to the page and anyone who reads it feels them too. I think that’s a damn good goal.
Short Story Submissions
Yet another decent week of submissions.
- Submissions Sent: 2
- Rejections: 0
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 1
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 6
- 2021 Total Subs: 53
My goal for June was 54 submissions, and I’m at 53. Not bad. I have a couple more days to send out one more, and that shouldn’t be hard. No rejections or acceptances last week, but I did have a publication, which I’ll talk about more below.
The Novella
I added another 4,000 words to Effectively Wild, pushing it up over 12,000 words total. I’d really like to finish it this week, but I’m having house guests for the first time in, uh, well, you know, so that might be difficult. Still, if I can squeak out another 4,000 words, that would be cool. I’m really enjoying how the novella is shaping up, and dare I say it, I think it’s pretty good. I’m getting the same kind of vibes I got when I wrote “Night Games”, and these two works definitely share DNA. When the novella is done, I’ll have to figure out how to sell it, and that’ll likely result in a blog post or two. 🙂
Publications
My flash fiction story “Giving Up the Ghost” was published at Flash Point SF last week on National Flash Fiction Day. It’s one of my favorites, and I think one of the better flash pieces I’ve written in some time. Give it a read by clicking the link below.
READ “Giving Up the Ghost”
Night Walk
My flash fiction anthology Night Walk & Other Dark Paths features 40 of my best stories. You can pick up a copy of your very own in print or eBook by clicking the cover below.
For an inside peek into the anthology and its stories, check out the Night Walk Wednesday feature right here on the blog. I’ll give you all the juicy rejectomancy stats on individual stories from the collection.
- NWW: The Big Picture
- NWW: Things That Grow
- NWW: Do Me a Favor
- NWW: When the Lights Go On
- NWW: Where They Belong
- NWW: The Night, Forever, and Us
- NWW: Time Waits for One Man
- NWW: Small Evil
- NWW: Far Shores and Ancient Graves
- NWW: The Rarest Cut
Goals
Work on the novella, send out more submissions, side-eye the novel that been waiting for revisions for three months.
That was my week. How was yours?
Acceptance Rates: A 10-Year Review
It’s been awhile since I did an acceptance rate post (2019 my post history tells me), and now that Duotrope has some additional accounting tools, I can figure those numbers more accurately than ever. (All you have to do is hit a button, and Duotrope gives you all the numbers). So let’s take a look at my acceptance rates over the last ten years and see what it tells us about where I’ve been and maybe where I’m going.
I started tracking my submissions religiously out at Duotrope in 2012. I did have short story submissions before 2012, but they were few and far between and, more importantly, none of them resulted in an acceptance. I also had a few poetry sales back in the late 90s, but since the markets that published my poems went extinct before the turn of the millennia, I’m not gonna count them either. Also, these numbers don’t include any of my media-tie in work. My acceptance rates would look a whole lot better if they did. 🙂
My first couple of years can best be described as tentative, and my submissions were both infrequent and unsuccessful. Interesting side note. I subbed eight distinct stories in 2012 and 2013. I went on to publish four of them in 2014 and 2015. Three others I collected in my flash fiction anthology NIGHT WALK, and the last one . . . well, there’s a reason it’s still collecting dust on my hard drive.
The next three years, from 2014 to 2016 were years of improvement, and the number of submissions I sent steadily increased each year. My acceptance percentage improved as well (with a little blip in 2015), and I managed a fairly impressive 21% in 2016. In these three years, I saw my first publications with markets that would go on to publish my multiple times. For example, you’ll find my first stories with The Molotov Cocktail and The Arcanist in here.
The following year I often just refer to as “the bad year”.. I sent more submissions than ever before in 2017, but for the life of me, I couldn’t BUY an acceptance. I also call this the year of the shortlist because I have never gotten so close to publication so many times without, you know, an actual acceptance. I think it was something like eight close but no cigars, and if I could have converted just half of those, it would have pushed me into a respectable 12% acceptance rate. Oh, well, that’s just how it goes, and the silver lining is that I sold a lot of those shortlisted stories in the following year.
The next three years were universally good. From 2018 to 2020, I sent nearly three hundred submissions and netted a bunch of acceptances. My acceptance percentage reached it’s peak in 2020 at nearly 22%. I’ll take that number every year, thank you very much. The reason for these successful years comes down to a lot of factors. Certainly, my work has improved, but I’ve also gotten better at the submissions game and found a number of markets that like my work and have published me multiple times. That all adds up to more acceptances. I mean, that’s what I thought anyway . . .
And that brings us to 2021, which is shaping up to be a repeat of 2017. Like that fateful year, there has been a veritable plague of shortlists that ultimately became rejections. There’s still a lot of 2021 left, so I might turn it around. I did go on a tear in the second half of 2020 that pulled that year from mediocre to best ever. Maybe I can turn 2021 from train wreck to tolerable.
My all time numbers are about where I want them. My goal is to maintain a 15% acceptance rate, and before the start of the year I was above that. My 2021 numbers are pulling my career average down a bit, but, as I said above, there’s still time to recover.
One point of clarification. No response includes withdrawals, which, in my case, generally happen because of no response from the publisher.
And there you have it, the most accurate look I can give you at my submissions stats in the last ten years. These numbers may differ to some extent from older versions of this post from my admittedly flawed methodology, but not too much. No more than a percentage point here and there. So wish me luck in turning 2021 around, and, please, feel free to share your own past and present acceptance rates in the comments.
A Week of Writing: 6/14/21 to 6/20/21
Three weeks of June gone by. Here’s how I did.
Words to Write By
This week’s quote comes from Anthony Trollope.
A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.
– Anthony Trollope
I like this quote because, well, it’s how I write. Now this is not to say it’s the only way to write or the best way, but I think what Anthony Trollope is getting at here is that if you can commit to 1,000 words a day or even 500 on your novel or story or whatever, it quickly adds up and removes the need (and maybe the stress) of blasting out huge chunks of prose at once. That said, if Herculean efforts work for you, who am I to argue? (Or Anthony Trollope, for that matter.) Anyway, I can pretty reliably get at least 1,000 words down on something most days. When I’m drafting a novel, that can creep up to 2,000 or even 3,000. Now those aren’t blow-your-socks of daily numbers, but if you keep at it, one day you’ll look up and realize you’ve written a 90,000-word first draft in under three months. That ain’t bad.
Short Story Submissions
Another solid week of submissions.
- Submissions Sent: 2
- Rejections: 1
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 6
- 2021 Total Subs: 51
I’m on a nice steady pace with submissions lately. Two more last week gave me 51 for the year, and I sent one yesterday that brings my total to 52. My goal is to end June with 54 submissions for an average of 9 per month. I only need to put out two more in the next 8 days to do that. I think I can manage it. I won’t lie, it’s been a disappointing year thus far for acceptances, especially compared to last year where I managed more than an acceptance per month. There are always a lot of factors that go into this, and a lot of it has to do with timing, which markets are currently accepting subs, and, of course, the stories I’ve been writing. Thing is, I certainly don’t think the quality of my work has declined. If anything, I’d say it’s improved over the last year. The number of markets that are looking for the kind of fiction I write, on the other hand, well, that might be a different story. 🙂
Media Tie-In
Last week I completed the contract for Privateer Press and sent of the invoice for the work. Always nice to put a big project like that to bed. Hopefully, there will be more opportunities to write in the Warcaster setting in the future. I really liked the epic thousand-world sci-fi combined with elements of steampunk fantasy. Good stuff.
The Novella
I had hoped to add 4,000 words to Effectively Wild last week, but I only managed 2,000. I did add another 1,000 yesterday, though, and the novella currently sits at 9,000 words. I think I’ve hit the halfway point, so my guess is it’ll be somewhere in the 20,000-word range when all is said and done. I’d like to get over 12,000 words this week, then finish the first draft next week.
Night Walk
My flash fiction anthology Night Walk & Other Dark Paths features 40 of my best stories. You can pick up a copy of your very own in print or eBook by clicking the cover below.
For an inside peek into the anthology and its stories, check out the Night Walk Wednesday feature right here on the blog. I’ll give you all the juicy rejectomancy stats on individual stories from the collection.
- NWW: The Big Picture
- NWW: Things That Grow
- NWW: Do Me a Favor
- NWW: When the Lights Go On
- NWW: Where They Belong
- NWW: The Night, Forever, and Us
- NWW: Time Waits for One Man
- NWW: Small Evil
- NWW: Far Shores and Ancient Graves
- NWW: The Rarest Cut
Goals
Work on the novella, and send out more submissions.
That was my week. How was yours?
A Week of Writing: 6/7/21 to 6/13/21
Another week walks into the sunset. Here’s how I did.
Words to Write By
This week’s quote comes from Louise Brown.
I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.
–Louise Brown
Ain’t that the truth? I am currently sitting on 463 rejections. Some ballpark math tells me the word count of my average rejection is about 100 words. So I might not have the novel that Louise Brown has (yet), but I’ve got a longish novella of rejections. All joking aside, I think most writers who make some kind of career out of this probably have a novel’s worth of we’re gonna pass’s and not for us’s. It comes with the territory, and if you keep all your rejections like I do, you can look back at the novel of no’s and see where you’ve been, how you’ve grown, and maybe even take a little pride in how you’ve endured.
Short Story Submissions
A solid week of submissions.
- Submissions Sent: 2
- Rejections: 2
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 1
- Pending: 6
- 2021 Total Subs: 49
Two more submissions last week keeps me on a good pace for the month and my yearly goal of 100 subs. I’d like to end the month with 54 total submissions (for an average of 9 per month), and I’m in good shape to do that. The two rejections were both of the form variety, one being higher-tier and a bit of a heartbreaker, but that’s the way it goes. I have a lot of faith in that story, so out it went again. I had a newish flash fiction piece shortlisted, but it’ll be a while before I find out if it’s accepted or not.
Media Tie-In
Pretty much finished my commission work for Privateer Press in their Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika setting. Last week, I accomplished my goal of writing the five 1,000-word vignettes I owed. Four have been approved, and I expect to hear about the last one soon. It was nice to dip my toe back in that pool and work with some old friends from my Privateer Press days. I really like the setting, and hopefully I’ll get to write in it a bit more in the future. Completing this job let me hit a nice milestone. It put me over the 300 mark for total fiction credits. Not too bad.
The Novella
My focus last week was on completing my commission work, so I didn’t get much done on Effectively Wild. It still sits at around 6,000 words. I did, however, do some research on where I might submit it, and found some interesting possibilities. I might talk more about that in an upcoming blog post. This week, I’d like to hit an even 10,000 words on the novella.
Night Walk
My flash fiction anthology Night Walk & Other Dark Paths features 40 of my best stories. You can pick up a copy of your very own in print or eBook by clicking the cover below.
For an inside peek into the anthology and its stories, check out the Night Walk Wednesday feature right here on the blog. I’ll give you all the juicy rejectomancy stats on individual stories from the collection.
- NWW: The Big Picture
- NWW: Things That Grow
- NWW: Do Me a Favor
- NWW: When the Lights Go On
- NWW: Where They Belong
- NWW: The Night, Forever, and Us
- NWW: Time Waits for One Man
- NWW: Small Evil
- NWW: Far Shores and Ancient Graves
- NWW: The Rarest Cut
Goals
Work on the novella, and, as always, send out more submissions.
That was my week. How was yours?
100 Submissions Per Year: Why I Do It
I’m a goal-oriented person, and I like to set fairly difficult goals for myself. One of those goals is 100 short story submissions per year, which I’ve been aiming at it for the last five years straight. Let me tell you a little about why I set this challenge for myself and its benefits and potential drawbacks. Like any goal, this one is not one-size-fits-all, but it works for me, and maybe it’ll works for you too. 😉
First, the numbers. You’ll need to send roughly 8 submissions per month to hit 100 in a year. I generally find it easier to approach this challenge on a monthly basis, but you could take it week by week as well. There, you’d be looking at 2 submissions per week. Depending on how much you write and, more importantly, what length of fiction, these numbers may seem entirely doable or utterly impossible. Since my submissions are roughly 75 percent flash, this falls squarely into the difficult but doable category for me.
So what does 100 submissions do for me? Three things.
- Keeps me writing. In order to hit 100 submissions, I have to have a lot of stories to submit. This is especially true since I don’t send a lot of simultaneous submissions. So I’m constantly writing to keep up with my submission goals. As I mentioned, I write tons of flash fiction, which helps me produce a lot. That said, my short stories take me a little longer to sell, and make up a fair number of my overall submissions in a year.
- More acceptances. The more you write, the more you’ll submit, and the more you’ll end up publishing. My acceptance percentage is somewhere between 15 and 20 percent (depending on the year). So, if I send 50 submissions, I should end up publishing between 7 and 10 stories. If I send 100 subs, then it should be between 15 and 20. That follows, at least for me, and my two biggest acceptance years are also my two biggest submission years. As I’ve said many times before, I could dial in my submission targeting a bit and potentially increase those numbers, but I still hold to the idea that more subs equals more publications.
- Experience. A tertiary reason to be sure, but I have learned a lot about writing, publishing, and submitting simply because I do it so much. The engine driving that experience is the 100 submission goal. I’ve seen just about every kind of response you can get from a publisher and my breadth of submission knowledge is wide and varied. This knowledge allows me to better strategize my own submissions and confidently give advice to others (like I’m doing right now).
This is not to sat there are no drawbacks to 100 submissions per year. There are, and let me tell you about them.
- Lots of rejections. Even in my best years, where I’ve managed a lot of acceptances, the number of rejections I received is pretty staggering. For example, if I’m getting a 15 percent acceptance rate, then I can expect at least 85 rejections in a year where I send 100 submissions. That means there are going to be long rejection streaks, days where I receive two, three, or more rejection at once, and all kinds of disappointing almosts and close-but-no-cigars. That’s not to say you can’t learn something from all that rejection, but, yeah, it can be disheartening.
- Haphazard submissions. The 100-submission goal is motivating, and it keeps me writing and submitting, but as a goal-driven person, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. The goal is not simply to submit. It’s to write and submit good work to the right publishers. Sometimes, especially if I’m falling behind on my goal, I can bee tempted to submit stories that maybe aren’t ready. I’ve done less of this of late, but looking back at previous years, there were definitely some stories sent out before they were ripe just so I could keep my numbers up.
To sum up, the 100-submission goal works for me, and though there are a few drawbacks, it’s definitely a net positive. Now, I’ve only managed to actually hit 100 submissions once, but I find the goal itself usually gets me into the 70s or 80s at a minimum, and that’s pretty good production. This year, I’m doing well, and on pace to hit my goal. We’ll see if I can keep that up.
Do you have a submission goal that keeps you motivated? I’d love to heat about it in the comments.
A Week of Writing: 5/31/21 to 6/6/21
First week of June has come and gone. Here’s how I did.
Words to Write By
This week it’s another nugget of wisdom from Stephen King.
“Give me just enough information so that I can lie convincingly.”
―
I’m currently writing a novella (more on that below) where I am incredibly familiar with the subject matter. In this case, it’s Major League Baseball. The problem with writing a subject you know well is there’s always the danger that you give too much information for the causal reader because you’re geeking out or not enough information because you expect folks to have the same level of knowledge you do. For example, in a story about baseball, I might write two paragraphs on something like why a team employs a defensive shift, which is not exactly important to the story but I got caught up in the joy of writing about a thing I find interesting. Then I might drop a term like pitch framing or spin rate without any explanation, leaving casual readers wondering what the fuck I’m talking about. What King is getting at, I think, is when you research a subject and get just enough information to make it sound authentic to a casual reader. Because you’re by no means an expert on the subject yourself, the tendency to commit the two sins above is less prevalent. For example, I wrote a story about counting cards in blackjack a few years ago, and I studied the subject for a good week before I started. Now, I am absolutely not ready to go turn the odds on the casino any time soon, but I picked up the basics of how it’s done and some of the lingo, which I worked into the story. One reviewer, unfamiliar with blackjack, lauded the authenticity of my explanations of how card counting worked. That tells me I hit the sweet spot and, well, as King put it, lied convincingly. 🙂
Short Story Submissions
A very good week of submissions.
- Submissions Sent: 5
- Rejections: 4
- Acceptances: 1
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 4
- 2021 Total Subs: 47
June is starting out on the right foot. I sent 5 submissions last week and had an acceptance from The Arcanist. I received four rejections too, but overall that’s a good week. I’m sitting at 47 total submissions for the year, which puts me comfortably on pace for 100 subs. I’d like to get to 54 by the end of June for an average of 9 subs per month. Based on this week, that seems likely.
Media Tie-In
Still working on a commission for Privateer Press in their new Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika setting. Last week, I finished the fifth and final short story I’d been contracted to write, and this week I’ll start (and likely finish) the first drafts of five 1,000-word vignettes I owe them. These should go very quickly. I have some prior experience writing 1,000-word stories. 🙂
The Novella
Last week I started what I thought was going to be a short story, an idea I’d been kicking around for a while. Well, I’m 6,000 words in and barely out of the first act. In other words, the short story is on it’s way to being a novella. It titled “Effectively Wild” and combines two of my favorite things: baseball and overused horror tropes. Of course, writing a novella severely limits your options for traditional publication, as many markets simply don’t publish fiction of that length. But, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Night Walk
My flash fiction anthology Night Walk & Other Dark Paths features 40 of my best stories. You can pick up a copy of your very own in print or eBook by clicking the cover below.
For an inside peek into the anthology and its stories, check out the Night Walk Wednesday feature right here on the blog. I’ll give you all the juicy rejectomancy stats on individual stories from the collection.
- NWW: The Big Picture
- NWW: Things That Grow
- NWW: Do Me a Favor
- NWW: When the Lights Go On
- NWW: Where They Belong
- NWW: The Night, Forever, and Us
- NWW: Time Waits for One Man
- NWW: Small Evil
- NWW: Far Shores and Ancient Graves
- NWW: The Rarest Cut
Goals
Finish up the commission work for Privateer Press, keep working on the novella, and, as always, send out more submissions.
That was my week. How was yours?
Submission Statement: May 2021
And May is in the books. Here’s how I did.
May 2021 Report Card
- Submissions Sent: 10
- Rejections: 10
- Acceptances: 1
- Publications: 1
- Further Consideration: 0
Ten submissions is a good month, and May’s numbers give me 43 for the year. That breaks down to 8.6 submissions per month and puts me on pace for 100 (but just barely). I’d like to get 11 submissions in May, which would average out to 9 subs per month. It’s only one more, so it seems doable. Ten rejections is not fun, especially since half of them came within the space of a couple days. Such is the gig, though, and you gotta roll with it. I did score one acceptance in May, another story to Wyldblood Press. One publication last month, another installment in my Dark Matter Magazine column.
Rejections
Ten rejections this month.
- Standard Form Rejections: 6
- Upper-Tier Form Rejections: 2
- Personal Rejections: 2
Lots of rejections in May. In fact, it is the most rejectomantic month of 2021 (so far). Most of these were form rejections, either standard or higher-tier, but I did get a couple of nice personal rejections. They were more effusive than most personal declines, and clearly spelled out “good story, bad fit or timing”, which is always nice. It lets you fire those stories back out with confidence, which I did. 🙂
Publications
Just the one publication in May, my latest Rejectomancy article over at Dark Matter Magazine. This one is all about rejections, a subject I know a thing or two about. 🙂 You can check it out by clicking the link below
Normalizing the No: Rejection Letters
Yeah, it didn’t publish in May, but I’m gonna point you at my flash fiction collection Night Walk & Other Dark Paths anyway. 🙂 Check it out if you haven’t already.
And that was my month. How was yours?
Multiple Rejections in a Single Day?! Why & What To Do
Well, here’s a topic I haven’t discussed in over five years, which is weird because I certainly have had occasion to discuss it many times. Recently, in fact. I’m talking about the multi-rejection day. That moment when the stars align and rejections rain down from the heavens to crush your meager writing dreams to flaming wreckage. I’m being dramatic, but getting two, three, or even more rejections on the same day can be pretty disheartening. So let’s talk about why it happens and what to do when it happens.
It might seem like all the editors in the world are out to get you when you receive multiple rejections on the same day, but I promise that’s not the case. In my experience, the multi-rejection day arises from three things, all of which are fine on their own but occasionally work together in unfortuitous ways.
- You send out a lot of submissions. The simple truth is the more submissions you send, the more rejection you’ll get (more acceptances too). If you’re like me, and you always have eight or more submissions pending, rejections are pretty constant, and it’s not exactly surprising that some might show up on the same day.
- You submit to tough markets. If you’re sending stories to the top-rated, pro markets–I’m talking about the places with sub-one-percent acceptance rates–then, you my friend, are going to get a lot of rejections. Of course, breaking through with one of these markets is the sweetest of the sweet, but it can take a while. So if you’re sending a lot of submissions AND sending them to tough markets, you’re greatly increasing the chances of getting two or more rejection on the same day. It’s just a fact.
- Dumb luck. As I said, it might seem like all the editors got together and decided to send rejections on the same day, but, of course, that’s not a thing. Editors send responses to submissions on their own timelines. Sometimes, one editor or three might coincidentally share the same timeline. It happens, especially when markets have similar submission windows. To sum up here, when you send a lot of submissions to tough markets and sprinkle in a little adverse luck, well, the multi-rejection day is inevitable.
Okay, so that’s how the multi-rejection day happens, now what should you do about it? I have some thoughts. Some are do as I say and not as I sometimes do, of course, but they are what I try to do.
- Don’t read into it. Getting three rejections in a day is no different than getting those same rejections over the course of a week or a month. They mean the exact same thing. Our fumbling human brains will attempt to see meaning and patterns where there aren’t any, and such is the case here. I’m not saying it’s easy to get a bunch of rejections on the same day–it most certainly isn’t–but one of the best things you can do is maintain some perspective. Like one rejection, three rejections don’t necessarily mean bad story or bad writer. It generally means bad fit and/or bad timing. Just, you know, times two or three or four or whatever. 🙂
- A little help from your friends. No one understands the trials and tribulations that writers go through more than other writers. Reach out to your writing friends, commiserate, get a little sympathy. It helps. It really does. We all need the occasional life preserver on the stormy literary seas. Let someone throw you one, and be there when they need one in return.
- Take a break (or don’t). This goes for dealing with any setback in submission land, but sometimes it helps to do something unrelated to writing, as difficult as that may be. For me, exercise usually does the trick. That combination of endorphins and “accomplishing” something is often the cocktail of positive input I need. Of course, sometimes it’s best to get back on that horse and send those stories out the door right away. I do that a lot too. Recently, I did both, and the hybrid approach was effective.
So there you go; the why’s and what to do’s for the multi-rejection day. How do you deal with the event, and if you feel like sharing, what’s the most rejections you’ve received in a single day?
Night Walk Wednesday: The Rarest Cut
Welcome to Night Walk Wednesday, where I talk about the submission journey of a story from my flash fiction anthology Night Walk & Other Dark Paths. This week’s tale is “The Rarest Cut.”
How it Started
This is yet another one-hour flash fiction success story, and the “Rarest Cut” is one of my earlier attempts in the one-hour blitz that has defined my flash fiction career. Word tells me this story was originally written in 2013, but I think it might be a tad older. The prompt is now lost to time, but I know it got me thinking about cannibalism and then, well, even darker stuff.
What’s It About?
“The Rarest Cut” is another that follows my patented flash fiction formula in that it features only two characters, takes place in a single location, and starts right near the, uh, meat of the story. It’s a simple setup with a man trying out a new dish at a restaurant that is decidedly off the beaten path. It’s one of those stories with a twist, so I won’t spoil it here, but I was proud of it when I finished. Fun anecdote. I have a friend who likes to share my work with other folks, especially those that don’t read much horror. This is his go-to story when he introduces someone to my writing because he gets a kick out of their (often disgusted) reactions. I mean, can you ask for a better compliment than that? Anyway, here’s a little taste. 🙂
Vincent cut into the meat, grimacing at the effort needed to saw through the stringy, pink flesh. He sliced off a portion, speared the chunk with his fork, and skated it through the fatty au jus pooling on his plate. He lifted the morsel to his nose and sniffed. The coppery tang told him the meat was quite rare, as he’d ordered it, but beneath that pleasant smell was a gamey odor that, of all things, reminded him of dirty laundry. He shrugged and popped the piece into his mouth.
How’d It Do?
It took me a bit longer than usual to sell “The Rarest Cut”, though it did receive some nice personal rejections. I ended up selling it to Evil Girlfriend Media in 2015 and then it was reprinted by Ellipsis Zine in 2018. I suspect it struggled a bit at first because, well, it’s gross, and that really isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I don’t know if I’d call it gory, but it’s definitely icky.
The Numbers
- First Submission: 3/2/14
- Final Submissions: 11/24/18
- Accepted On: 7/28/15
- Accepted On: 11/26/18
- Total Submissions: 7
- Total Rejections: 5
- Shortlists: 0
- Personal Rejections: 2
As I said, five rejections is more than usual for a flash fiction story I sell, but not anywhere near my record. “The Rarest Cut:, was good enough to place twice, but it’s definitely been edited a few times between acceptances. The version in Night Walk is, I think, the definitive version of the story–lean, mean, and icky.
If you enjoyed the submission journey of “The Rarest Cut”, check out its 39 siblings in Night Walk & Other Dark Paths, which you can order in print and eBook by clicking the cover below.
Effectively Wild – A Baseball Horror Story
Night Walk & Other Dark Paths
Acts of War: Flashpoint
Acts of War: Aftershock
Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 