No Thermometer Required

I received my 3rd short story rejection of 2009 today (but who's counting) and I'm glad. No, I haven't got a temperature. It was one of those personal rejections that inspires you to have another look at the story and to do some editing. I am very happy with the results, the story is stronger and I've added it to my list of favourites*. I've also cheated. My plan was to write a story to sub to Necrotic Tissue this week. I've completed the first draft of something that has a lot of "but why does that happen?" questions that I don't know all the answers to yet, so I sent my revised story to them instead just in case the 'something' ends up in the recycle bin. I also changed the name of it from the hideous 'Dwelling' (what possessed me) to 'The Scratch of an Old Record'.


*Being on the list of favourites is not a good thing - they never sell. In my opinion the best stories I wrote last year were Frog & the Mail Order Bride, Treading the Regolith, Manipulating Paper Birds, Chasing Alice out of Wonderland and Strange Tooth, and they're all stuck in submission land. While some I was a little unsure of sold right away. Moral of the day: Don't trust you're own judgement.

If at first you don't succeed

Oh, I am so glad my first attempt at a story for The Black Garden anthology was rejected as it spurred me on to try again, and I really, really like my second attempt. Whether Christopher does is another matter of course.

Have just submitted Manipulating Paper Birds. Gulp!

Now, having deserved a well-earned rest, I'm off to watch the 3rd Planet of the Apes movie. I'm working my way through the box set - the 2nd movie was laughably atrocious, I hope this one fears better. Ooh, actually typing that makes me wonder if that's an omen for the above submission. Maybe it will be better luck third time around with that too... Have I ever mentioned that I'm an optimistic pessimist???