"Aftermath of War's" Long Journey Continues

My story “Aftermath of War” has been through some things. This story was written off the writing trigger, “Time Magazine,” at The NoteBored. It was the second challenge I did at NB (NoteBored). And the forth story I wrote after joining NB and Liberty Hall (LH). Ten stories later, I did a re-write of “Aftermath of War” and placed it in the NB’s Polished Stories Challenge for more feedback. Fifteen stories later, I polished it up again and subbed it out to magazines.

“Aftermath of War” publication stops:
Happy—11 day rejection
Haruah—12 day rejection
Bewildering Stories—1 day re-write
Gambara—126 day rejection
The King’s English—25 day rejection
Plunge—111 day rejection

I took my story and polished it up for Bewildering Stories. With my polish, “Aftermath of War” was re-titled, “Home and Home Again.”

“Home and Home Again” publication stops:
Bewildering Stories—2 day rejection
The Pedestal—28 day rejection
Literary Mama—64 day rejection
Four Volts—8 day rejection

After that rejection, I submitted my story out to three new magazines on the 9th: Xelas, Front Porch Journal, and Euphony.

The next day I sent it out to two more magazines: Eclectrica and Dicey Brown.

It will be another 2-3 months before I receive the rejections from these places. I’ll keep you updated.

“Home and Home Again” rejected by Literary Mama and Four Volts

After this story was rejected by Bewildering Stories on August 28th, I sent it to The Pedestal on July 31st. Twenty-eight days later I got my rejection letter:

[quote]
Thank you for submitting your work to The Pedestal Magazine. We enjoyed reading it but regret that we cannot use it at this time.

We wish you the best of luck in placing your work elsewhere and sincerely hope that you will submit other writing to us in the future.

Best,
The Editors
The Pedestal Magazine
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com
[end quote]

I then sent my story to Literary Mama on August 29, 2006. It was turned 64 days later with a rejection.

[quote]
I deeply apologize for the "impersonal" nature of this email. As writers
ourselves, we know how brutal it can feel to have excellent work get a
seemingly indifferent response. Please know that your story was read
carefully, and enjoyed, but the current volume of submissions prohibits
us from commenting on each piece. Many times we turn down excellent pieces simply because they don't fit with the developing tone of an issue in progress. Other times, they just don't fit our guidelines.
(http://www.literarymama.com/submissions.html)

I invite you to submit work for consideration for future issues.
Literary Mama publishes new fiction every month, and we are continually seeking new pieces for publication.

Best,
Suzanne Kamata
Literary Mama
www.literarymama.com
[end quote]

The next stop for “Home and Home Again” was out of country. As it visited a UK magazine, Four Volts. Eight days later I got my answer—no.

[quote]
Thanks for submitting to the magazine.

I'm sorry but we would not like to publish your story. Though it was
solidly written, we found the outcome too obvious from the start, and the ideas explored a little too ordinary.

Best wishes with your future work,

Krishan Coupland
www.fourvolts.co.uk
[end quote]

That makes 10 rejections for this story.

The weekend writing spree.

I have wanted to write new stories, but I just haven’t had the time. Or maybe the correct phrase would that I just haven’t made the time. I have spent hours in front of the tube that could have been spent in front of a computer screen.

Part of the reason for lack of writing is the change in my schedule. Dan used to work nights, leaving the house quiet from 8PM to midnight. I used to fill that time with writing and managing the NoteBored. Now with the move, Anna is going to bed at 9PM and Dan works during the day. Plus, I have two extra kiddos 1-3 times a week.

Another part for my lack is depression. Depressed that my best stories keep getting rejected over and over again. Though I tell myself, when I send them, they will be rejected—it still hurts. I have had a couple of close acceptances, but those hurt the worst.

Well, I didn’t have to watch the kids on Friday, today, or tomorrow—so I wrote. I have wanted to do another Liberty Hall flash challenge but it takes me so long to read the stories, I kept putting it off. But with no extra children the beginning of this week, I did it.

On Friday I participated in the 90 minute timed flash challenge at Liberty Hall. I haven’t done one since March 5, 2006. I also stated a story for the NoteBored word limit flash challenge, which was completed on Sunday evening. I hadn’t done one since the third week in March.

Today, I have read the group of stories at LH had I to, but I hope to read the other group tonight. There were only about 12 stories entered, including mine.

I still need to read the NB challenge stories, but there were only two more besides mine and I have until Friday to read them.

It was great to be typing out stories again. The one I did for LH was a light Sci-Fi piece and the NB one was more of a history piece. Both outside of the normal genre I write in, though both were Christian stories.

Dream Dance-submitted to new magazine

While showing my friend Deanna how to look at accepted stories to illustrate at Haruah, she mentioned that the other magazines under Double-Edge Publishing would be the same way. I got the idea of checking them out and seeing if I could get photos accepted else where.

The first other magazine that looked at was The Sword Review. It mostly is a fantasy magazine with science-fiction as well. It is really difficult to take those kinds of pictures. However, I saw that one of the pictures accepted was a combination of a couple of pictures.

Figuring that I could do something like that, I gave it a try. I used Gimp 2.2. I took the moon out of one of my husband’s pictures and some various pieces of clip art from The Print Shop.

I worked on it some Thursday night and was going to work some more on it over the weekend (but I was out of state—that is another story to be told at another time). I then worked on it Monday night and Tuesday morning. I had never used Gimp, so it was a lot of trail and error.

In the end I came up with an illustration that I liked and submitted to The Sword Review on October 31st. I knew it was the best I could do, but I wasn’t quite sure if the editors would like it.

I got an email back the following day, saying that it was rejected. Though their form letter said that they normally leave comments, I got none. I really wished that they had left something as I would like to know how my very first photo composite went. Now I have no idea what to change for the future.

You might be wondering to yourself why I don’t post my accepted pictures here directly on my website. That is because that if I do, I can’t submit them else where. But since this picture was rejected and I don’t know where else to send it, I’ll post it at my other site (not sure how to post it here).

Please keep in mind that this was my very first attempt at something like this. If you have any comments of any sort, then by all means please post them. I would love to hear from you.

To see my creation, please click here.