Falling through the cracks?

I'm in no hurry to court rejection, but I have to wonder whether I should follow up on a submission. I submitted a story via e-mail to Jim Baen's Universe just about the same time they were switching to the new submission system--beginning of May. The link to their new system didn't work, and I noted that in my e-mail. I received a response that said:

We'll be handling your current submission by e-mail, but we'd like to ask you to send future submissions through the above address. This will allow you to track the current status of your submission online: when you think you may not have received an e-mail from us, you can just click a link that we'll send you to check.


Responses on story submissions are currently taking two to ten days. If you have not received a response within four weeks, feel free to inquire.

So it's been almost six weeks. Should I inquire? As I said, I don't want to court rejection, but I do want to know that the submission didn't get lost as they changed over their system.

in pursuit, once again

Last month during Forward Motion's story-a-day challenge, I wrote a flash that I think would be a good fit for Paradox's alternate history flash contest. Cute little story, barely 500 words, relies on the reader's knowledge of Julius Caesar to fill in the backstory. Sort of a "what really happened next."

Last night, I started editing it. Where's the conflict? Where's the change? Where's the resonance? I find I expect a lot more from myself now.

I don't know that that means I actually can write something that's excellent. But I can at least see it's lack at a certain level.

Oh, and I am continuing to edit the flash to improve all those things I saw as lacking. "But it's good." "It's not good enough, and you know it. Just do the work." *grumble, grumble, red-line*