Two More Down · 6:15pm May 22nd, 2018
Following up on:
This first post and this second one, here's the third!
Rejection notes always sting, but after 35 years of getting them, I wouldn't say they really hurt. I do a little grousing afterwards, but I've always got other stories I'm working on: a third act for my original fic entry from the Message in a Bottle writeoff; the third act for the pony story I'm likely to post the first act of here later this week; starting to think about rewrites for the pony story I've got in the current writeoff—can you guess which one is mine?
Now, I was pretty much expecting the bounce from Weasel Press for the de-Ponified version of "Shades of Hades." Their website gave me the impression that they were looking for stuff on the deep 'n' serious side, and I sent them a cute little talking animal romance story. But the bounce notice I got yesterday—after 10 consecutive years, the next volume of the Sword & Sorceress anthology won't have one of my sorceress squirrel stories in it—that one definitely stung.
It all kind of reinforces the feeling I've always had about my writing, too: it's good, but pretty much "third choice" at best. "We got more submissions this year than in previous years," the editor of S&S said, "and we have many more good stories than we can use." Combine that with Cold in Gardez's comment on my third-place-finishing story from the Next Generation writeoff back in February—"I recognize quality when I see it. If you want me to rank this higher next time, be more ambitious with your plot or your themes."—and I have to start wondering if a 54-year-old, semi-sapient life form such as me can learn to be a deeper thinker. 
Mike
Sorry about all the bounces
Sympathies on the stingy stuff. I'm glad you're using it to think and push yourself higher and not letting it drag you down.
Sorry about the bounces and the stings… Personally I think you're a great writer, but there's always room to improve (even for CiG himself). Writing is a journey, not a destination. You're writing stuff now that you likely weren't able to do in years past thanks to lessons learned, narrative voice development, and life experiences. Just keep at it!
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Thanks, folks!
Looking at the Cluny story, I'm starting to think it might've been more like a chapter in an ongoing serial than a stand-alone story. That's always been a fine line to walk with these pieces since, well, they are chapters in an ongoing serial. The challenge is not infodumping at the beginning while still cluing in readers who haven't read any of the previous installments. This one starts off a little too fast, I think...
Mike