I have previously shared how difficult it was to get my first short story acceptance. It took over fifty submissions before I finally got one yes.
Just one week before I received my first yes from Idle Ink for “Memory Catcher” an editor responded to one of my short stories with some personalized feedback. Typically, the rejection is just a form letter that says “Dear ___, Thank you for sending… It is not right for us.”
Instead, this editor went out of his way to let me know he found the piece dull and stopped reading halfway through (the editor of Idle Ink would later tell me that feedback seems unnecessarily harsh btw).
At that point, I wondered if “Memory Catcher” just didn’t work as a short story. It was the old question of whether I needed to find the right person, or go back to the drawing board.
In that case, I soon found out that I needed to find the right person. J.L. Corbett, the editor of Idle Ink, loved my piece. It was exactly what she was looking for, as we discuss in this podcast episode.
Now, with the struggle of trying to get an agent, I wonder if my books need to be revisited. Do I need to rewrite one of them again, or maybe finally write a new one?
If I don’t have any success by the end of the year, my hand will be forced and I’ll work on a book for “Embers.” I’ll aim to have it done and edited by September, and then start querying.
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