Ah, rejection. It is the bane of the writer. Rejection can either build you up with the fierce desire to "show them!" or it can destroy with its simple prose of finality. "We don't have suitable space..." "It's just not right for our list..." "We decided not to pursue your project..." blah blah blah. I guess one of my "favorite" rejections was the return of my query letter with a rubber stamp slapped on the upper right hand corner that read "Not Interested." They were so anxious to return it to me they didn't even seal the envelope!
Well, I've been thrown outta better joints than that! Anyway, what I did was send a Crispin short story to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, one of the absolute few who publish mystery fiction, and it was rejected. I've actually had some success with short stories. My first was published in a defunct literary magazine called Kinesis many years ago. And I have since published two so far in St. Anthony Messenger Magazine, and received an unexpected award for one of them. So though I've sold many magazine and newspaper articles, there is nothing like selling one's fiction someplace.
I will send it to The Strand next and I suppose if they reject it, I can put it up on Amazon Shorts--short stories by authors that Amazon sells electronically for 49 cents. Not ideal but something. It's a very tight market for short stories. Magazines that used to carry them (usually women's magazines) no longer do, or won't take untried authors. It's very hard indeed to make a living at writing fiction. Almost any other industry will pay you more. It's truly a shame to watch celebrities receive a mint of an advance with a no-talent work and watch great midlist authors struggling. But it's not about fair, is it? It's about good old- fashioned capitalism.
If you'd like to read two short stories, just pop in on my web site and click on "The Tin Box" and "Catching Elijah".
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