Rejection Letters from magazines/publishers

Those Who Can’t


I was reading The Swivet last Friday and saw this:

It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you’re dealing with someone who can’t.

(By the way, here’s a simple way to find out if you’re a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you’re not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)

It was right after a trip to the mailbox where I received my latest fiction story rejection. Per usual, I got a personal note. They liked the premise but didn’t think there was enough conflict or at least not a “big problem for the main character to deal with/solve”.  Apparently, the moral ambiguity  involved in selling terminally ill individuals as though they were shoes doesn’t count as conflict which is, of course, not the point. If I have to explain the conflict, I failed. It’s that simple.

And by the way, I don’t disagree with the quote at all. It’s something I struggled with as a teacher and more recently in writing groups. Which is why I agree with the other quote by writer/director Josh Olson on the importance of being honest rather than breaking your brain to find something positive or encouraging or worst of all – nice – to say.

I think a lot about the idea of focus. What do I write best? I should be putting my energy there. Right?

A Rejection Letter with a Twist


I mentioned some time back that I had submitted a sci-fi story that I have been working to a Canadian magazine based out of Edmonton. Not the kind of magazine that I suspect many of my gentle readers read being science fiction and fantasy based, never the less I was fairly excited and optimistic. The story I sent is the first in a series of inter-related shorts that will tell a whole story once they are all complete. One of the pieces was recently rejected by the annual acrostic contest. I wasn’t surprised. The story isn’t “stand alone” enough for a short story format that insists on being told using the letters for the alphabet for the first word in each line and just 26 sentences long was too intriguing to pass up. The story wrote itself and I am very proud of it. Read Full Article

Rejected Again. This is Becoming a Bad Habit.


Well this is starting to be a running theme. The Pike’s Peak Flash Fiction Contest I entered back in January got back to me with very nice comments on the two pieces I entered but basically – I didn’t win or place or even show. That leaves, I think, only two other writing contests I am currently still waiting on. One should be decided soon but the other is part of the CanWrite workshops that take place in July at the University of Alberta. Since we are going to be here now that we’ve passed on the Texas, I am thinking I will try to attend. I have to check the dates again because Katy and I are going to be in Iowa for a while after her school gets out. My mom is overburdened with care-taking and I am going to help out for a bit. Not anxious to jump back into that mode. Every time I have visited since my late husband’s death little things have brought back the memories of taking care of Will at home for those first 15 months of his illness. Oddly the biggest reminder is the towel my Mom keeps wrapped around the base of the toilet to catch the “dribbles”. Between his unsteadiness and dimming eyesight, Will couldn’t hit water standing up and wouldn’t sit down. I was always mopping up pee when I wasn’t stepping in it. Dad is the same way and when I see the towel I remember to check for wet spots to avoid sopping up anything with my socks. Urine soaked socks. Now there is a memory.

I sent out another two pieces last night and today. One a reworking of the tooth-tooth blog for the Globe and another on how Rob and I met for Ladies Home Journal. I really hate entering contests when I can submit for free to publications, but it’s not easy finding opportunities for basically unpublished writers. Magazines are asking asking for clips (of previously published work) with queries and submissions. The big Catch-22. 

The flash pieces are going to be resubmitted to a web-based site called Quick Fiction which specializes in the mini-genre of fiction 500 words or less. Mine had to be 100 or less for the contest and so are on the ultra short end of Flash, but it is a fun and exacting exercise in creativity. 

So all in all that will be seven pieces out for consideration between contests and magazines (still waiting to here on my sci-fi and should probably send an e-mail soon.) Oh no, wait – I resubmitted The White Boots at FailBetter. Eight of my babies are out on the street corner trying to make mama a name.