Friday, 19 December 2003

Got a rejection from Strange Horizons. They send personal rejections, try to give some clue about why they rejected the story. I gripe when I get form rejections. (Such as I got earlier this week. From someone I'd shared a table of contents with no less! Don't you think former TOC-mates owe one another a personal rejection at least?) And yet, personal rejections aren't any better. Editors have the oddest reasons for rejecting stories. Or rather, editors say the oddest things when they're describing why they're rejecting a story. I don't read much into it, though. These stories are done. I'm not going to change them at this point. (Well, if an editor said, "Cut this scene and I'll buy it," I'd certainly do that.) I try to draw something from what the editors say--and there's often something to be drawn about the editor's tastes or the magazine's inclinations. I'd be delighted if I could draw some wisdom about how to tell a story, but I can't point to an editor's comments in a rejection and say, "That comment made me write a better story."

The big news in the writing journals lately has been the Interstitial Arts Foundation's new web site. I kind of feel left out, though. Most of my work is well within the traditional scope of science fiction and fantasy. It'd be quite a stretch to call most of my stories interstitial. Basically, they're all pretty damned stitial.

Haven't run or lifted since Sunday. Very busy at work; I find it draining. The cold, windy, snowy weather doesn't help either. Exercise will help, though--help me handle the stress, help me feel good. Tomorrow.

The other thing to do tomorrow is to get my stories back out. I think I've figured out where to send each of them. There are four to go out, and we've got other things to do in the morning, so I doubt if I'll get them all to the post office tomorrow, but I'll try to get them all printed and address with their SASEs. Mailing them Monday will be fine.