Monday, July 20, 2009

Timing Is Everything

So after all that hard work on Valley of the Splintered Oaks, I sent it in Saturday to the Horror in Rural America antho and got a rejection Sunday. The reason? They had already accepted a "broken down car on the side of the road" story, so to whoever beat me to the punch by a few days, I have made the appropriate offerings to the lords of the underworld. You should expect fiery revenge any day now. ;) To think that I might have had a better shot if I'd only subbed that thing a day or three earlier had my wife blaming herself for taking me away from the keyboard last week. Hey, at least the response time was damn fast. Amidst my plans for seppukku, I hit upon another idea for the anthology and tonight I started a new story, getting about 500 words down. This one doesn't involve cars of any kind.

8 comments:

Fox Lee said...

You, too?? My story got rejected because they already had one involving a train!

Aaron Polson said...

Ouch...timing is a fickle bitch. I'm sure you both will find brillant homes for these stories.

Cate Gardner said...

Well I'm a Brit so they won't even look at mine. :(

Jamie Eyberg said...

At least he got back to you quickly.

Merc said...

Timing like that sucks--but at least you got a quick response. Better than waiting months only to hear the same thing.

(I had a wonderful rejection like that once, where the only reason it was a "no" was because the magazine had bought a story very similar, only longer. Still, gives me hope the story will make it elsewhere!)

Best of luck with the new story. :)

~Merc

Alan W. Davidson said...

Put down the sword man, their will be other opportunities.

BT said...

Seems a lot of this type of rejection response going around lately. I've had two similar stories.

I'm wondering if the editors are just taking an easy option.

I hope you and Nat find a home for these stories very quickly to show them the error of their ways.

Good luck with the new idea.

Anonymous said...

I missed the deadline for a nonpaying anthology and ended up selling those same stories for professional pay a couple of months later. Just keep your eyes open! It will work out. :)

-Mercedes