I tend to go through cycles with my fiction writing, particularly in terms of submissions. There will be a month or two where I will submit-submit-submit, market-market-market, maybe even write-write-write depending on how busy I am with school, and then I’ll go twice that long without so much as a single query.
So, do to my burst of submission energy in February/March, I’m now getting back a slew of rejections… but also several (small) sales. Cue the fireworks! After nearly considering is officially trunked, I finally sold “Evil Sleeps in Pink Pajamas” to Kaleidotrope, one of many genre-bending small press ‘zines, but the first to actually like this story! I also sold “RSVP” to Sam’s Dot Publishing’s Drabbler 11, which… apparently is already available! I hope I’m getting a contributor’s copy in the mail because the cost of the magazine is more than my payment (this happens more often than you might think). I suppose since it’s a “drabble” (100 words), it’s a flash story, but really I consider the piece more of a poem. And last but certainly not least, I sold “Tea Time at the 13th Hole” to Neverlands and Otherwheres, a print anthology from Susurrus Press. I originally wrote this piece as a children’s story meant for Cricket, but eventually reworked it a surreal-ish flash story.
And in the “published” category, we have a reprint of “Answer Me This,” in the Strange New Worlds of Lunacy print anthology. Not only is this the first time that I’ve been published in an anthology (and there’s something so lovely about a real book with my name in it), but my story was illustrated! Poor, dumpy Anthony, sitting on his couch looking positively dejected while the Sphinx smirks up at him from her spot curled up at his feet. (That story can of course still be read here in its original publication at The Town Drunk, but unfortunately sans the charming illustration.)
With the sweet comes the bitter, of course, and I’ve gotten a slew of rejections lately as well. Of course, they’re all very prestigious rejections – Chizine, IGMS, Weird Tales, etc. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?
I think I feel a new wave of submission fever coming on.
