In Honor of my 50th Rejection from a Major Spec Magazine
Hooray! I didn’t make it!
Earlier this week, I was rejected by Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine for the 50th time.
Truthfully, I’m not sure if this qualifies as “impressive.” Most people would have given up by now, I imagine; some don’t, and never will, content to smash their skulls against that particular wall until there’s nothing left but fragments. Others, I must assume, are far more reasonable.
So which kind of person am I? Let’s figure it out together. Take that 50 rejections from F&SF and add the following:
- That 50th rejection from F&SF was my 940th rejection overall since February 2017.
- There are several other publications that are running close in the rejection count. I’m at 48 rejections from Flash Fiction Online, and 45 from Clarkesworld.
- Next month, when the timeout counter ends, I’ll be sending more material to F&SF.
The answer, then, is “Ow, my head hurts. Why isn’t this wall down yet?”
In terms of whether I actually deserve to get into F&SF — an old, well-respected and important market for speculative fiction — I’ll leave that up to you. “ Distance is a Fallacy”? F&SF rejected this one was on January 12, 2018. “ The Hermit and the…
