My 23nd Rejection Letter (Hello!)

[earthtrekker]

Today I received my 22nd (update on 9/13--23rd) rejection letter in the past 10 months since I began submitting short stories. This rejection was for a flash fiction piece I had submitted to Nature, its Futures feature. The title is “Not the Wrong Planet.” A muse for it is a famous stanza from a Longfellow poem, the words beginning with “Ships that pass in the night….”

As a response to this milestone, I joined the Anomaly.

Submit it again or write? I prefer to write. Readers may come later, after I am gone. If you’d like to look at any of my rejected and now self-published stories, go to [a href="www.chaoticterrain.com "]www.chaoticterrain.com [/a]and follow the links. In general the stories are subversive to the dominant culture.

Guest Lecture. (What zombies teach us. Published in July at Residential Aliens.)

I’m Not a Baby Anymore. (A perspective on children.)

Strange Days Radio. (This horror tale is more real than you’d believe.)

Miss Thurman’s Intervention. (Battle of the Titans, a Hoarder vs. a Neatnik.)

The Arrangement. (A love story that almost got me arrested at a rally.)

Shoreless Ocean of Eternity. (Is the role of a historian to remember the past and attempt to improve the future, or to prevent the past and wreck the present?)

Read and enjoy. Let me know what you think.

-Meredith Eugene Hunt (earthtrekker)

p.s. Presently I’m working on a story titled “Turtle of the World.” It involves Tsuga dryads, a Cherokee creation myth, and woolly adelgids. It’s part of an ongoing series that begins with “Strange Days Radio.”

[Kessie]

Welcome to the Anomaly! I'll have to check out your site. You look pretty prolific. And that's a lot of rejections. How many sales?

[earthtrekker]

Hey Kessie, [laughing] One sale, to Residential Aliens. I really have given up on trying to sell stories. But I require that I submit a new one to three places first before I self-publish. This keeps me at perfecting them to a professional standard--or at least attempting to do so. I found one e-zine that's a help. It's Every Day Fiction. They rejected "Not the Wrong Planet" but sent me comments from FIVE editors/readers. A gift. The downside is they only take flash. Right now they have my story "Deprescience." [pause] I just read a story at EDF and didn't like it at all. That's one (small) reason I write--I don't like most of what's out there.

[beckyminor]

Welcome, earthtrekker! Well, you've certainly proven you have the tenacity to tackle this author business. I truly believe the trait of persistence is what sets many writers apart, gets them published, and helps them build eventual steady readership.

Thanks for introducing yourself. I'll check out your links soon!

[j2starshine]

Welcome! Your stories sound intriguing, will have to check them out.

[yoda47]

I was wondering how a story almost got you arrested. Now I know. Good story.

[earthtrekker]

Hello Aaron,

Think of literary activism.

“The Arrangement” was my first short story in 30 years and I like it better than any I have written since. However, it’s not science fiction or fantasy, which I believe is much harder to write than real world stories. With speculative writing you have all the same requirements as real life, plus fantastical elements that you must make believable.

I'll check out your blog.

[earthtrekker]

I'm speaking of fiction, of course. Real life fiction and speculative.

[cdeb]

A belated welcome earthtrekker,

And a word of encouragement from somebody on the same journey as you, with not so many rejection letters (but this is due to not so many submissions!! ;D).

I found this link to rejection statistics on the SFWA website very encouraging ( I posted it on my blog on another section of this part of then Anomaly, but leaving the URL would me you scrolling through a whole lot of posts you might prefer to skip ).
www.sfwa.org/2011/10/guest-post-submission-statistics-an-inside-look/

The bottom line is expect many rejections, but don't give up. The author's story which got accepted on the 19th attempt was one that was recommended for a Nebula Award.

Also on this other thread was the fact that one of Britain's top SF writers, Stephen Baxter (who's just released a new book together with Terry Pratchett) got his first story accepted for publication on his 482nd submission.

So, early days yet, I guess!

best wishes,

CdeB

[earthtrekker]

Hello CdeB,
[laughing] That’s quite the encouragement. All I have to do is submit one story 482 times!

Though 19 does seem doable. My 22 is for seven or eight stories. Not many attempts for each, but carefully selected ones. My time is such that I’d prefer to write than submit.

Interesting article at SFWA and a good picture of what it takes to be successful.

[earthtrekker]

How do you like my skull? I literally dug it up in my backyard. And behind it is my collection of Library of America volumes.

[Kessie]

What kind of skull is it? It's got some gnarly fangs on it. Is it a fossil? If so, can I come and play in your backyard?

[dragonlots]

hi earthtrekker,

Welcome to both the Anomaly and the life of a writer. One of the most helpful things the big name pros ever shared is that being rejected means you're a writer. Even they get rejection letters despite being well known.

I myself have twice as many rejections as I do acceptances - and I'm pretty prolific.

My goal is also to get my name in front of as many editors as possible. It's great when they accept a story but a rejection means they now know who I am and are more likely to accept my next submission or maybe the one after or after that...

One of the tricks I've learned is to turn around and resubmit the story somewhere else. Not necessarily right away. I've often waited months before sending a piece off to another editor. Most are picked up the second time around. Not always though. I have a story that is off to its third editor.

Persistence gets a writer published. That's another tip I've been given.

Since you're looking for editors - how about submitting a story to my anthology 'Different Dragons'? Info is both on the WolfSinger Publications site and under Anomalous Readings. Those on the Anomaly get a few more tips than those who only go to the WSP site.

In 'Time Traveling Coffers' which I edited and will be released in October, I accepted quite a few stories from Anomaly writers, including Kessie and Newburydave. (Half my writers were Christian Spec - a very uncommon average in any antho.)

I do understand you're frustration about rejections. My first book was rejected because the publisher didn't like stories about fuzzy little animals. He rejected it in person. However, I had another publisher WSP who chased me for a year to get it. She now is awaiting the next two in the trilogy.

Have you done any networking? Don't just court the big publishers. Look at the small presses. True, you don't always get paid but building the publishing credits will, in theory, cause the big houses to look at you more seriously.

DB
Editor and Author
'Of Fur and Fire'
'Time Traveling Coffers'
'Winter Awakening'
and stories in more anthos than I can list here

[earthtrekker]

Kessie, it's a bear skull and I did dig it up, but I also buried it in the first place. Umm, the bear was attacking my bee hives, and ... after that I only chased bears away, one time keeping it treed all night long. Once I ran off a grizzly in Alaska, in Denali NP. It was approaching two of my boys along a glacier creek and I was standing up on a moraine. I jumped up and down and hooted like a ring tailed lemur. (Denali saw its first bear induced human fatality a few weeks ago.) I describe the demise of the said bear of the skull in my speculative novella-in-progress, Clouds Fall to Earth.

[earthtrekker]

Dragonlots {DB}: Thanks for the ideas. I have a (an amazing, I believe) completed time-travel story hunting for a home. Almost 10,000 words. It's a stand-alone prequel to Clouds Fall to Earth.

I think I want readers for a story more than being paid. I WILL look at your anthology.