In getting one’s writing published, one must build a thick skin to rejection. It’s a numbers game, finding the right home for your story, and each of us handles it differently. How many “no”s in a row does it take to make an author lose heart? Same as that piece of string. 

I like to think I’m pretty resilient, but after 10 in a row – either polite rejections or not hearing back inside the expected window, even with a follow-up email – I was a little bummed out. Not tearing my hair out, but just wondering if I was looking for love in all the wrong places. This was coupled with two dozen apartments I’d applied for to rent, so it’s not that I was tired of screaming into the void; more that my throat was getting a mite sore. 

On a warm Wednesday in early April, I got the news that we’d been accepted for a townhouse I inspected and immediately fell in love with. Better yet, we could move in that weekend, so we did, and I’ve only just caught my breath. Between that AND reading for the magazine AND rewriting the first act of The House Always Wins, I’d gotten around to zero new writing or any new submissions of existing stories. Reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman also didn’t help my productivity, nor my sleep cycle. There had also been a breathless couple of weeks reeling from the death of a dear friend, and having to write part of the eulogy. But tonight is a new night.

So I was at my new desk in my new study, finishing up work, and I checked my email’s junk folder (an act I had recently grown accustomed to, to find all my rejected rental applications) and – lo and behold – I see an email from Fifth Corner, a literary journal to which I’d sent my beloved story Psychostasia, the day before finding out I got the townhouse. Not only was my story shortlisted for the Dark Fiction prize, it was picked to appear in their sophomore issue, available in July.

Went out to lunch to celebrate. I could have weathered a few more rejections, but the acceptance made my heart feel all yummy and warm.  

The wife and the cat are loving the new place, queens of their domain. Might take a crack at a new story tonight, a deal-with-the-devil scenario any creative would relate to. 

Love you guys, be good.