The Marathon
Sunday, I woke to an acceptance email for one of my oldest stories. It’s been on submission since 2018. It went out 32 times. THIRTY-TWO! Let’s look a little closer at those stats. First Submission Date: 4/21/2018. Total Submissions: 32 Form Rejections: 24 Personal Rejections: 4 Withdrawals/Never Responded: 3 Acceptances: 1 Final Submission Date: 7/21/2022. That’s over FOUR YEARS of submitting. Of sending out this story over and over and over, often waiting months between responses, only to hear time and again some iteration of “this one’s not for us.” And as the months turned to years, the doubt crept in: Maybe this story needs trunked. What if I run out of markets to send it to? Maybe it’s bad timing? It got good responses early on, but has been form rejected more and more lately so maybe editors’ tastes are changing? Maybe I should give up? I told myself…