Friday, June 15, 2007

Coming Up Empty

Two days without a computer, without e-mail, without access to the short story submission records, and I didn't go mad at all. And the minute I come home, it's straight at the computer to see if, as it surely must be, someone got back to me.

Nadia Cornier, after two weeks, sent a form e-mail rejection, declining. That's the sort of thing I've come to expect. Even William Clark declined a query that I sent.....six months ago, I believe. After a month with an e-query, you already know it's a 'no', but still. Nice to get the formal notification when no one else is replying to anything.

What about the short stories? Gettysburg Review is late on their response, going past the six month time. Blue Mesa Review has had a story since last November, and nothing. Have they lost it? Then there's the Boston Review, also well past their notify-by date. So that's it. I come back after a couple of days, and there's no news. No requests for more, no SASEs in the mail.

The agents don't respond anymore, and now the literary journals don't respond either. Have I become invisible without realizing a change was taking place? Or does the postman have it in for me?

2 comments:

J.L. Murphey said...

At least they ONLY took two weeks. I've had queries out standing for months! I had one small press publisher request the complete manuscript and take eight months to reject it. Take heart, honey. There is a silver lining in rejections,you have almost free wallpaper. (just joking)Http://jlmurphey.blogspot.com

O hAnnrachainn said...

I've enough rejections to paper every wall in the house....a small house sure but there's more than a forest that's been cut down to reject my novels.

You could always convince yourself that the eight months was needed because your manuscript was too good to reject outright, but the publisher wouldn't take a chance on a debut author. (If that doesn't make you feel better, I'd recommend a large whiskey.)