In my last blog post, I mentioned that I’d received a “please wait” response to a short story I’d submitted. Unfortunately, the story was rejected but I’m still seeing this as a positive outcome because it wasn’t rejected immediately. As it stands, I’ve dusted the story off and sent it out into the world once again.

This is something you have to get used to as a writer. Rejection happens. It doesn’t mean a story is bad. Perhaps the editor who read it wasn’t in the right mood for it, or wasn’t the right person for it. David, my editor for Wolf Unleashed, has talked about how a story can be great but only if it matches the tastes and styles of the editor who accepts it. He’s told me an anecdote about how he rejected a novel submission but told the author to go and talk to a different editor who he thought it would be better suited for. That other editor later thanked him because the story was a perfect fit for them.

Sometimes a story can be great but not quite right for the theme of the anthology or magazine it’s submitted for. Sometimes it could be great but too similar to another story that the editor has committed to publish and they want to have more variety. Sometimes a story is good but the other stories submitted were just slightly better.

As a writer, you have to develop a thick skin and just keep submitting. If a story gets rejected a couple of hundred times then it’s probably time to either do a major rewrite or move on to something else, but a story getting rejected once, twice, or even ten times doesn’t mean you should give up on it.

I have already resubmitted the story that was rejected and if it gets rejected again, I’ll submit it again. Either I’ll find the right place to send it eventually or I’ll have got another story ready to go out in its place that I might have better luck with. I just have to keep trying and so should you. Every writer gets rejected. Every successful writer doesn’t let that stop them.