The Continuing Journey Continues

My story continues to continue its long path to light. Written for one of NoteBored short story challenges, “Aftermath of War” has gone through several re-writes, a name change, and has had several rejections.

Before its name change, “Aftermath of War” visited:
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

After its name change, “Home and Home Again” visited:
Bewildering Stories-2 day rejection
The Pedestal-28 day rejection
Literary Mama-64 day rejection
Four Volts-8 day rejection

I sent my story out to Xelas and Front Porch Journal on November 9, 2006. The next day it went to the mailboxes of Eclectica Magazine and Dicey Brown. On November 15th, GUD and Fiction Warehouse received my story. And the last places I have sent my story out were 42Opus and Armada Quarterly on January 19, 2007.

Eclectica Magazine rejected “Home and Home Again” on December 3, 2006
[quote]
Dear Joy,

Thank you for your submission to Eclectica Magazine. After careful consideration, we have decided not to select it for publication. There are many possible reasons for why a particular piece isn't selected, and I regret that we are unable, given time constraints, to offer further explanation as to which of those reasons applied to your work. I will say that you're in good company; as always, there were many authors and many pieces that we would have liked to include.

Best of luck with your writing and in finding a home for this work. We appreciate your support of online literature in general and Eclectica in particular, and we hope you'll try us again in the
future.

Sincerely,
Tom // Eclectica
[end quote]

I got two rejections on January 7, 2007.

Front Porch Journal
[quote]
Thank you for submitting your work to Front Porch. We regret not being able to accept your work at this time and we wish you the best in placing it elsewhere.

Sincerely,
The Editors
Front Porch
www.frontporchjournal.com
[end quote]

Euphony
[quote]

Dear Joy,

Thank you for sending us your story "Home and Home Again." I'm afraid we will be unable to use it. We receive many stories and must often decline accomplished writing.

Yours with best wishes,
John Robert Martin
Fiction Editor
Euphony
[end quote]

GUD rejected it on January 19th
[quote]

Dear WJoy,

Thank you for sending us ""Home and Home Again"". Unfortunately, it's not what we're looking for at this time.

Best of luck with this piece in other markets,

Sincerely,

Sal Coraccio
Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine
http://gudmagazine.com
[end quote]

The last rejection this story received was from Fiction Warehouse on February 2, 2007
[quote]
Joy:

Thank you for your interest in Fiction Warehouse, but at the present time, we will not be able to feature "Home and Home Again." We regret that your story doesn't suit our present needs. Please know that we receive many more submissions than we can use, and our needs do not necessarily reflect the quality of your work.

Best of luck in placing this story elsewhere, and we look forward to reading more of your work in the future.

Wayne Gunn,
Managing Editor

Fiction Warehouse
http://www.FictionWarehouse.com/
[end quote]

Most of my recent rejections have been form ones. I had been doing so well at getting personal ones.

So the most current string of rejections are:
Front Porch Journal-59 day rejection
Euphony-59 day rejection
Eclectica Magzine-23 day rejection
GUD-4 day rejection
Fiction Warehouse-20 day rejection

I’m still waiting to hear from:
Xelas-92 days and pending
Dicey Brown-91 days and pending
42Opus-21 days and pending
Armada Quarterly-21 days and pending

Xelas is of the time that I can now write them and see what the status is with my story. I think I’ll give it a few more days and then I’ll email them and find out. I hope that the long wait means good news.

But I thought that with Gambara once, too. Gambara almost did publish this story, but it failed in the last reading. That was a heart breaker.

So if you lost count there – in all I have 14 complete rejections on this story. I was told by another writer that the stories average around 20 rejections before they are accepted. I guess I’m almost there.

I’ll let you know about more rejections as they come in.