A couple of more rejections to note:
#4. “Pahwakhe” from ChiZine, 2 December 2006 — they said it was “a fine story, it’s not quite weird enough” for their tastes. Some nice encouragement. This same story is still pending at HLQ.
#5. “Soul Competency” from F&SF, today. Form letter, I think: “We’ll pass. There’s some fine writing here, but it didn’t grab my interest.” I’m trying to decide whether to submit it somewhere else as is, or maybe get it critiqued and rework it before sending it out again. But I think I might just send it out again, as critting and reworking might just drain the life from it.
I was momentarily discouraged, but only for like, 2 seconds. There are tons of places to send “Soul Competency”, and I’m sure I’ll sell it eventually. Or, work it into a better form, or something. Or maybe it’s part of the pile of stories I need to write before I start consistently writing publishable work, I don’t know. It’s not a big deal, anyway.
My rejectomancical understanding is that John has three forms – didn’t grab, didn’t hold, and didn’t quite work. An additional comment like “nice writing” is independent of the rest of the form.
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=378&post=31361#POST31361
Which one is Soul Competency?
But yes, just keep sending it! I have “didn’t grabs” from JJA that were passed up to the editor at other pro mags and vice versa. I say wait till you have a larger sampling to decide whether or not it needs reworking.
Also, I like your new random bon mots at the top of the page.
Whoops, I must not have hit submit to my response last night. “Soul Competency” is one the crit group hasn’t seen (yet?): a story of a language teacher (not English) in the days of the Second Coming. You can guess which language he teaches and why. It’s a satire both of foreign-language teaching and of mainstrea organized religion.
I’ll try another mag, then. Hm. Religious satire… I wonder where.
keep on keepin’ on!
Thanks, I will. I actually revised another story today, as you can see in the “projects on the go” section in my sidebar. And I am considering starting in on another revision this evening as well…
Or maybe I’ll just watch a movie. :)