Friday, November 5, 2010

Was going to blog about another rejection, but guess what???

I did get another rejection, this one from The Leading Edge. The great thing about this market is that they provide at least two sets of comments from two different readers when they send a rejection. My sets of comments were actually pretty positive, positive enough that I don't feel inclined to make any drastic changes to the story. It, ultimately, just isn't the kind of thing they publish as it's for too young an audience.

So I was all set to work up some blog post about finding your voice and deciding whether a story is broken, or just not right for the market you sent it to and I'm sure I had some other deep and insightful thoughts (well, no I'm not, but I can dream, right?)

Anyway, I didn't get around to making such post before yesterday, and yesterday, when I got home for jewelry class, I had an email from Analog with a contract for another story. Analog is a big deal market for a science fiction writer. It's one of the premier magazines in speculative fiction, and arguably the premier magazine for hard science fiction. For me, who writes everything from science fiction to fantasy to romance, this was quite a stretch, especially given the only hard science fiction I write is for young adults and middle grade readers (tweens and teens), while Analog is, for the most part, for an adult audience.

And FINALLY, I have my three pro sales for SFWA, the speculative fiction writing guild! It only took ten years, lol (yeah, that is a really, really long time.) Even though I've sold more than three stories to pro markets recognized by SFWA, several were too long for me to earn enough per word to meet their criteria. My novel, SFWA wasn't sure about (only one novel sale is required for membership) given it was romance and to a small press. The last president actually had me email him personally with all my data, and then he went on vacation before he had a chance to decide whether I was eligible, and I never heard. I didn't bother to pursue it, though, because I'd much rather have three sales that clearly qualify rather than try to get in on a technicality.

I don't think I'm the very last person from my Clarion West class to qualify for SFWA, but I'm close. I was the last one to get published, but hey, we all got there in the end.

7 comments:

  1. Woooooot!!!! Congratulations - getting accepted by Analog is HUGE!

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  2. Thanks, Steph! Hope your novel is selling like crazy (psst, everyone, it's A Most Improper Magick in the UK and Kat Incorrigible in the US - I LOVED IT).

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  3. Yay, congratulations, that is tremendous!

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  4. Congrats! Any details? title, which issue . . .

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  5. Thanks guys. Melanie, I responded to yours but then it didn't appear :-(.

    The current title of the story is "Hostile Environment". No idea what issue - since the contract only just got signed, it's early to know that. I'll post more details and talk a little more about the story closer to the time. To be honest, I need to reread it to remember the final version! That's the thing about publishing, looong timelines.

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  6. I didn't know if the issue was set out in the contract or not, so thought I'd ask. Yeah, long timelines, but that just means you can work on something else in the meantime. :)

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  7. Yeah, in my experience it almost never is, unless the piece is selected for a special theme issue, or the market only considers pieces for specific issues within pre-set periods of time. Nearly everything I've sold has gone into inventory and I find out the issue later. The shortest turnaround was with Niteblade and Coyote Wild, they put the story in the next issue, the longest has been with The Black Gate, which had my story in inventory for a few years. Which was kind of nice because I had "something yet to come out" for all that time. Helps stave of the despair of feeling my career wasn't going anywhere. No idea what Analog's timeline will be.

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