Harumph

Warning: Theraputic venting in progress.

In all my years of writing, I've developed quite an impressive immunity to rejections. You have to, otherwise the discouragement would drive you to swear off writing forever--something that is an unthinkable impossibility for me. So most of the time, rejections don't even make me blink. Except... I've got one story, quite probably the best story I've ever written. It's titled "Awaken, Well Rested." It's pure science fiction. Not quite "hard" but close enough to pass for such at a glance. I grew increasingly nervous while writing it, because I had a growing suspicion that it was far beyond anything I'd ever written before. A scant handful of well-established pros have read it and confirmed those suspicions. One even used the dreaded "A" word.

Said story has yet to sell, despite making the rounds over the last couple of years. One major proposed anthology folded beneath it. A couple more said it was the 13th best story they received, but they could only accept 12. The genre magazines all looked at it while making indecipherable grunts of approval before declining to offer me any money for it. The unifying theme of every rejection has been "Well, yes, it is quite good. Er, no, I don't think it's quite right for us."

I've sold stories clearly inferior to this one to some of these same markets. It doesn't, to coin a phrase, make any sense whatsoever. It's more akin to Chinese water torture. "Awaken, Well Rested" will sell to a major market, somewhere, someday, sooner or later. I've no doubt about that. But geeze Louise, even my nearly-inexhaustable patience is fraying about the edges.

Okay, self-pity session is now officially over. I'm putting away the crying towel...

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