I’m back down to only having one story out on submission waiting for a response. Every other story I had out recently has come back with a rejection. A few I expected since they were long shots at best. Most were form rejections, but the few that did have comments were, at least, complimentary. Still, it can be pretty demoralizing. Doesn’t mean I plan to stop any time soon.

I recently checked my own rejection numbers against some of my contemporaries. I’m a rookie at best. Some people I have shared tables of contents with have rejection counts of many hundreds. I have collected around fifty. So I am many years worth of rejections away from the point where giving up would even be an option. I’ve barely even started.

I plan to send a few of these stories back out this week. They may be on their way to their next rejection, but I know they aren’t doing anything just sitting here on my hard drive. Eventually someone will publish them, I just might have to up my numbers a bit before they do.