Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 39

A Week of Writing: 2/18/19 to 2/24/19

Another week in the trenches, and other week of submissions, rejections, and miscellaneous literary endeavors.

Words to Write By

This week’s quotes comes from, uh, *checks notes* Wayne Gretzky?

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

– Wayne Gretzky

This is a quote from the greatest hockey player to put on skates (I know that, and I’m not even a hockey fan), but, damn, does it apply to just about everything, including writing. I send out a lot of submissions–one-hundred and twenty last y...

The Rejection Archives: Rejection #84 (Personal)

Time to dive back into the Rejectomancy vault and fish out another rejection from my collection of nos and not for us’s. We’re gonna stick with the same theme as last week, and I’ll show you another detailed personal rejection. Here it is:

Rejection Number: 84
Story Sent: 12/20/2015
Rejection Received: 1/31/2016
Rejection Type: Personal Rejection

Thanks for letting us see [Story Title].  I regret to say that it’s just not right for [Publisher].

It’s a solid piece, with some good characters an...

A Week of Writing: 2/11/19 to 2/17/19

Yikes. How did it get to be Wednesday already. A little late with this update, but here’s my writing week that was.

Words to Write By

This week’s quotes comes from Sylvia Plath.

“I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.”

– Sylvia Plath

I’ve been in a bit of an acceptance drought to start the year, and the rejections have been piling up. Despite my admittedly thick hide, when rejections attack en masse they can wear me down. So, when that happens, and I feel like I’ll never sell a story...

The Rejection Archives: Rejection #7 (Personal)

Got another rejection from the vault to share with you. This is the seventh rejection I received after I started seriously tracking my submissions through Duotrope. Let’s have a look.

Rejection Number: 7
Story Sent: 2/2/2013
Rejection Received: 2/21/2013
Rejection Type: Personal Rejection

Aeryn,

Thanks for letting us see [story title].  I regret to say that it’s not right for [publisher].

I loved the incredible vividness of this story, and thought the ending was rather awesome.  [Redacted det...

The Rejection Archives: Rejection #7

Got another rejection from the vault to share with you. This is the seventh rejection I received after I started seriously tracking my submissions through Duotrope. Let’s have a look.

Rejection Number: 7
Story Sent: 2/2/2013
Rejection Received: 2/21/2013
Rejection Type: Personal Rejection

Aeryn,

Thanks for letting us see [story title].  I regret to say that it’s not right for [publisher].

I loved the incredible vividness of this story, and thought the ending was rather awesome.  [Redacted det...

A Week of Writing: 2/4/18 to 2/10/18

After a month hiatus on the ol’ writing updates, it’s time to get back on that horse. Here’s how I did last week.

Words to Write By

This week’ quotes comes from Anita Shreve.

“To ward off a feeling of failure, she joked that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejection slips, which she chose not to see as messages to stop, but rather as tickets to the game.”

– Anita Shreve

I love this quote. Referring to rejections as “tickets to the game” feels so on point to me, because I truly believe t...

One-Hour Flash – End of the Line

Hey, folks, here’s another bit of flash fiction from my vault of almosts, not quites, and something’s missings. Like a lot of these flash pieces, this one came about in a one-hour flash fiction writing exercise. Sometimes those exercises result in publishable fiction and sometimes they result in, well, something else. This is one of the latter. As usual, this is essentially a first draft.

Here’s “End of the Line.”

End of the Line

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Arnold awoke to the rumble and vibration of a moving train. H...

The Rejection Archives: Rejection #1 (Form)

Something new on the ol’ blog today. I thought it might be fun to go through my extensive archive of rejections and share a few with you on a weekly basis. So let’s crack open the vault and have a look at some no’s, not for us’s, and we’re gonna pass’s.

Today I have the very first rejection I received in what I call the “Duotrope Era,” basically when I started seriously tracking my submissions.

Rejection Number: 1
Story Sent: 4/16/2012
Rejection Received: 5/5/2012
Rejection Type: Common Form...

The Rejection Archives: Rejection #1

Something new on the ol’ blog today. I thought it might be fun to go through my extensive archive of rejections and share a few with you on a weekly basis. So let’s crack open the vault and have a look at some no’s, not for us’s, and we’re gonna pass’s.

Today I have the very first rejection I received in what I call the “Duotrope Era,” basically when I started seriously tracking my submissions.

Rejection Number: 1
Story Sent: 4/16/2012
Rejection Received: 5/5/2012
Rejection Type: Common Form...

Submission Statement: January 2019

Well, here we are, one full month into the new year, so let’s see how 2019 is treating me so far.

January 2019 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 9 Rejections: 7 Acceptances: 1 Publications: 2

Nine submissions isn’t bad, and it puts me on pace for my 100-submission goal. Seven rejections is pretty average, and a lot of these were for submissions I sent in 2018. One acceptance and a couple of publications round out a decent month.

Rejections

Seven rejections for January.

Standard Form Rejections...