My First Story Rejection

Well, I got my first rejection letter yesterday. Haruah turned down, “Life Goes On.” Though I told myself that they wouldn’t accept it, I really thought that they would. Oh well, I gather from their comments that they thought that I started my story in the wrong place and they would have liked to see the teen’s whole range of emotions.

The thing is, is that I wasn’t after the full range of emotions. I wanted to keep the story short (under 1,000 words), because I thought I’d lose my impact if it was much longer. I think I’ll see if there are a couple of more places to mail this to and see what they say. If the feed back is the same, I’ll re-work the piece. The only thing is is that it is find to find Christian markets for short fiction.

But Haruah may very been correct as they are editors and I'm just a new writer.

“Life Goes On” is about a fifteen year old who has lost her mother and baby brother to a drunk driver, but these aren’t the only family deaths this young teen has had to go through. She has also lost each of her grandparents. After the funeral, she tells God that she hates Him and when Sunday rolls around, she doesn’t want to go to church. But because her dad’s will was so strong in going, she did and the Lord starts speaking to her heart through a Bible verse in Sunday school and the sermon. The teen struggles through out the beginning of the week as she wants to hate God even though she knew she shouldn’t. At Youth Group the leader finishes his five series lesson on Job and the teen finally breaks down and begs for God’s forgiveness.

I still have “Aftermath of War” in the mail, and I’m expecting a rejection letter from them as well.

Oh yeah, Haruah is still pondering about my photo. I gather that they like it, but they already have several sunset pictures already accepted. I knew that would be a problem when I resubmitted my photo. Oh well, bad timing on my part.