The Travelling Theatrical Tour: On Dreaming the Impossible

(a guest post by Cate Gardner)

Thank you to Aaron for allowing me to invade his blog so that I cancelebrate the release of my book, Theatreof Curious Acts. Aaron is one of my favourite online folk and I thought anapt subject for his blog would be 'On Dreaming the Seemingly Impossible' for as Aaron's recent publication in Shimmerproves, perseverance pays off…
Clarkesworld (insert magazine of your choice here) will never acceptone of my stories. I fully expect they won't - most of the time. This isn't acase of doubting whether my stories are good enough, it's about a market thatthousands of writers target and, which only accepts twelve a year from theslush pile.
Despite this fact, every time I send them a story I think 'this is the one'.
It never is, of course.
Does receiving a rejection from Clarkesworld bother me? Heck no, I justsent a story to one of the top magazines in the speculative fiction business. Idared to dream.
If rejections get you down, and hey we all have our moments, try toremember that every other writer out there, that one you just twittered, thatother who just wrote a Facebook update that left you gasping with envy, theygot a rejection yesterday or they'll get one tomorrow. You're not alone. Rejectionsare part of the business, but their partner is a wonderful thing called hope.What was just rejected goes out into the world with fresh hope.
And you know some of those writers who've had stories accepted by oralready published by Clarkesworld, well they didn't think they'd make it ineither. Now I need to go check if seven days have passed since I last subbed toClarkesworld.
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Theatre of Curious Acts is available at all goodonline bookstores.
Daniel Cole wants the world to  end.
Returned home from the Great War, his parents andbrother in their graves, Daniel walks a ghost world. When players in a theatreshow lure Daniel and his friends, fellow soldiers, into a surreal otherworldthey find themselves trapped on an apocalyptic path. A pirate ship waits toferry some of them to the end of the world.
Already broken by war, these men are now theworld's only hope in the greatest battle of all.
More information isavailable at www.categardner.net