Good and Bad in the so-called authorial life

[lagilman]

The Bad: after waiting longer than is usual and getting my hopes cautiously up, got the kick in the teeth from Analog.

The Good: It was a personal, quite complimentary kick in the teeth, with specific reasons why he isn't taking it.

So I'm really really disappointed...but at least I don't feel like I embarassed myself in the submissions sweepstakes.



Now need to figure out where to send this next... *smoke rising from brain*



I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but despite having CGAG last night and Stuff happening tonight, I still managed to move up another 1,700+ words on the WiP. And I think they're readable words, too. So good, even though it's less than I wanted? or bad, because this means I need to crank on it tomorrow night, when I'd hoped to actually get some sleep?

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about the Analog "kick in the teeth"...

[lagilman]

Thanks. The worst thing was, this response took almost twice as long as usual, so there was some "maybemaybemaybe..." going on.

Ah well. Will go out to the second market on the list, secure in knowing that Stan thought it was well-written and interesting. There are worse things to know about a story...

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

With respect to the length of the wait:

Before I was selling regularly to Analog, Stan would reject my stories within about 4-5 weeks. Once he was buying my stories, rejections would start taking 8-9 weeks instead.

Stan has frequently told me about stories that he has liked, but knew just weren't right for the audience for which he is buying...

[lagilman]

Yeah, that seemed to be the tone of the reject letter -- he told me exactly why it wouldn't work for the Analog reader.

Since I just got news of a reject from another (less significant) market, I'm hunting for the postive aspects of this as much as I can.


*reminds self that self has six books under contract. Not everyone thinks she sucks... even if she feels deeply unloved right now.*