Remember I mentioned a place where I submitted TWO stories and they long-listed BOTH of them?

Well they got back to me.

AND THEY ACCEPTED ONE OF THEM! (The other remains under consideration with them.)

I wrote Turtle Hatchlings in the summer of 2018 and have been sending it around since then. It’s a weird little story, that reads like fantasy but is 100% science fiction; I had quite a few beta-readers not understand the twist and had to tweak it a lot. It racked up 18 rejections (including three long-listings). Normally by that point I would have trunked it; clearly something wasn’t working.

But two things kept me pushing forward: the first was that I really loved this story, and believed it just needed to find the right market; the second was my dang submission goal. So I kept putting it out there.

And here we are with an acceptance.

JUST KEEP SWIMMING. JUST KEEP SUBMITTING.

—

And because of course it never rains but it pours, I have a second piece of news for this week: I GOT INTERVIEWED!

Emily Tyler over at PenMob is running a series on how to deal with rejection, and I am interview #2, which you can read here.

I know it’s not the New York Times, but it’s my first interview as a writer (that’s not for a magazine I just sold a story to) and I find it very exciting. There have been a lot of fangirl squeals around the house. So go check that out! One chunk, in particular, is very pertinent to today’s news:

When a piece gets rejected, how long do you wait before sending it off again? Do you change anything before you do, and if so, how do you decide what you change?
I generally send pieces out again right away. I spend a lot of time working on the piece before it ever goes out the door — sending it to multiple beta-readers, revising based on their comments, making sure it is not only the best that I can make it but also exactly the story I want it to be. So unless a revise & resubmit comes back in (very rare), I chalk the rejection up to it being not the right market/right time, and move on down my list. There’s a market for every story, but sometimes it can take a while to find the right fit.

From “How to Deal with Rejection” at PenMob

That’s Turtle Hatchlings‘ story of success to a tee. Just in case you didn’t think I practice what I preach. 😉

I’ll have more details about the story when I get them, but for now it looks like TdotSpec is launching in March, and I’ll be in their inaugural issue!

Not a bad way to start a January. Let’s hope it is a sign 2020 will be a little bit easier than 2019.