The Awful Agony of Almost

I have reached a point in my writing career where the majority of short stories I write accumulate further consideration and close-but-no-cigar rejections from pro markets. I have three stories circulating at the moment, each with a minimum of three such rejections. In this post, I’m going to talk a bit about this particular brand of no, what it might mean, and how my perception of it has changed over the years. As always, this is NOT an attempt to call out publications or editors or anything of...