Progress

I heard back from Abyss and Apex today.  They didn't accept "Catkin," so now I have my first rejection letter.  I would, of course, have been more excited if they had accepted it, but I am still excited to have received a rejection letter - it's a mark of progress.  In addition, it was a very kind rejection letter and they encouraged me to submit again.  While it's quite possible that it is a stock letter, nonetheless, as these things go, it was a very nice one to get as my first.

Anyway, I turned around and submitted the story to another magazine - Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  I once attended a motivational type workshop where we did an exercise in which the hundred or so people in the room milled around asking each other for something.  The something didn't matter, the rule was that as you were asked for things - a flower, a date, a job, an autograph - you said "no" to nine people, then "yes" to the tenth.  The point of the exercise was to remind us that if we didn't ask we wouldn't get to that "yes;" that the "yes" could seem arbitrary to us; but also that the "yes" was out there if we were persistent.  So here's to persistence and all the "no's" before the eventual "yes."