Over on Live Journal, Nick Mamatas (@nmamatas) wrote a short piece that strips away a lot of illusions about how your short story makes it from slush pile to published.
Next time you receive a rejection letter and you start to take it personally, or attack the editor for being unbelievably stupid, remember that it’s nothing personal. Your work just has to be very good. Read this one more time, take a deep breath, and re-submit somewhere else. You do have a list of possible venues for submission, right? If not, go here to learn how to make that list.
By the way, if you are unfamiliar with Mamatas, go pick up a copy of his book Starve Better. It’s similar to John Scalzi’s You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop To A Coffee Shop (reviewed by me here) in that it has a lot of great, no-nonsense advice about the writing life, getting published, and getting paid when they’re about to cut off your electricity.
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