eimarra: (Default)
eimarra ([personal profile] eimarra) wrote2009-05-28 11:15 am
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Hope's rebirth, maybe

Ellsea recently posted on her blog about Rejection: the death of hope. I replied over there, saying in part:
I always find it hardest when I really believe in a story and think that it has a shot. For example, the first year I submitted to the PARSEC short story contest (on a whim, almost, not expecting much), I got third place. When I didn’t even place the next two years, it hurt. (And really hurt when a friend won, though I was happy for her, too.) Now I’m waiting for the results of this year’s contest . . .
Today, of course, I got the results. Two stories submitted, neither of them placed. Again.

I only got the details for one of the stories; it didn't even make the short list. I seem to be getting worse at this instead of better. I already know what next year's theme is going to be ("The Color of Silence"), but right now, I don't know if I'll even bother trying. Whether I'm getting worse or the competition's getting better doesn't really matter, does it? What matters is that this particular brick wall is winning, and I just pulled my head away with a pulped-in section of skull and blood leaking out.

Now, having vented, I reconsider. Scalzi's one of the judges for next year. He liked "Rise of Kencha"; he had it short-listed for the issue of Subterranean he guest-edited, even though he eventually decided against it. Maybe I have a shot if I can get past the screeners. I've always said I don't do the rejecting of my stories; that's the editors' job. Not writing and not submitting -- those aren't my jobs.

Probably later this week, I'll look at "Family Man" with the feedback I got and do another edit pass on it, using some of the things I've picked up from reading Fire In Fiction by Maass. Then out the door it goes again. Because my job is to write and submit.

[identity profile] slobbit.livejournal.com 2009-05-28 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm. You know, I wonder if I'm better off that I stepped away from the wall before I was bloody.

Sometimes . . . it's like a puissance wall, and it teases me.

Sometimes . . . most-times, it's unleapable, unscalable, unassailable.

*offers a pillow*

[identity profile] doc-lemming.livejournal.com 2009-05-29 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
See, my only sales were from before the brain tumor. So in my darker moments I speculate that they took my creativity and excellence out with the tumor....

But hope springs eternal...it's just that despair sits on it sometimes.

Rejection sucks

[identity profile] ellsea.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com) 2009-06-01 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Ouch! Sorry to hear neither story placed: I think you're right - it is harder when you think you've got a good match rather than the 'hit and hope' method - it's a double whammy when you're proved wrong.

Have a bandage for the head, and I guess we have to wear our wounds with pride & find the courage, defiance or sheer cussedness to keep on at it until something sticks :)