Witness today’s Interfictions-sponsored mass culling of their submissions:
It’s from a snapshot I took at The Submission Grinder, a site where writers keep track of their short story submissions.
Usually rejections come out in a trickle, with a wide assortment listed on The Submission Grinder’s main page at any given time. Yet, today Interfictions really unleashed the kraken, gobbling up almost all the space on The Grinder’s front-page while they were at it.
And, of course, one of my stories fell victim to the mighty beast.
For those who aren’t aware: Interfictions’s a wonderful biannual genre-bending speculative fiction online magazine, officially recognized as pro-rate by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
It’s no shock that they rejected many, many stories for their upcoming issue — it’s a great venue, only open a couple times a year.
It was only a surprise, to me, that so many came out all at once.
And since I can sometimes have a dark sense of humor, I got a huge kick out of it.
One of the things you quickly learn about the submission process is that you need a way to deal with rejections — and humor can be a great approach.
Maybe I’m weird, but it’s one of my ways. Being able to laugh at yet another rejection is better than getting upset or frustrated by it, since being upset and frustrated isn’t conducive to writing — but laughing is a wonderful fuel.
For anyone who can’t find the humor, though, just remember: Sending out submissions isn’t a rejection process. It’s an acceptance process. Having your story rejected doesn’t mean you, personally, failed. It just means some other people had a story that, for any number of reasons, was a better fit.
I hope people out there will, like me, keep at it. Keep writing the very best stories you can, and improving your craft along the way. You are my competitors, but I want my story to get accepted because it’s the best — not because people felt frustrated and gave up.
Rejection is only a failure if you stop writing, and the only story that can never get accepted is the one that’s never submitted.
So, thank you, Interfictions, for allowing me to be a part of your Bloody Friday. I look forward to your next submission period.
ryan p adams 