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Rabia Gale

alchemical fantasy

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short stories

short stories

statistics and other lies… I mean truths

I just remembered to update my Submission Tracking Spreadsheet (Ta-Dah!). I actually have one of those, and I’ve been really really good about (not!) keeping it updated, ever since I started submitting short stories in the Dark Ages (2003), way back B.C. (Before Children).

I was quite impressed with myself to discover that I have submitted 42 times and that, in spite of my low success rate, I keep doing it! Go, me! Go, persistence! The story that was submitted the most (9 times) is The Most Beautiful Woman in the World (otherwise known as The Story With the Stupid Long Title) before I gave up and decided to offer it along with Here Comes in the Bride in an e-book that you can download here. The runners-up, at seven times out each, are Second Sight (which found a home) and Ill Met by Afternoon Light (which didn’t).

Incidentally, what is it with me and long titles?

Alas, none of my humorous stories found homes. Proof that I’m not as funny as I think I am? Or maybe long title overload caused editors’ brains to frizzle and garnered instant rejection: Ill Met by Afternoon Light, In the Lair of the Dark Lord (goodness, could I have come up with a more ponderous beast of a title?) and A Plague of Chicken (which I still think is a cute title and a cute premise).

Ah, I see that I cunningly disguised in the Lair of the Dark Lord by renaming it Prophecy’s End later on, but failed to lure an editor into accepting it.

Some day, I will go back to these old old stories and see how cringe-worthy they are. If they are specially egregious, I will post up snippets and we can all laugh at them.

How about you? Any awe-inspiring submission statistics to share?

Woo!

Remember that story that I was beating my head against a month ago?

It sold! All that head-banging and hair-tearing was worth it!

The ‘zine is Mindflights and the story is “Soulsong”, featuring Elinor, the War Bard who appeared in “Singing for the Enemy”.

Now I’m dreaming up yet another Elinor story. I love that girl.

As the Princess might say, “Me happy!”

and… sent

Can I say that revisions to an existing story are harder than just writing a new one?

But I have revised and resubmitted.

Now off to rest my bleeding eyeballs.

ungh

Yes, that is a very articulate title for a blog post, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, that’s how I feel right now. Remember the revise-and-resubmit request I got a while ago? I worked on the story in question all weekend, and my changes still have not accomplished what I hoped they would. I’m wondering if I should just rewrite from scratch.

I was hoping to just do fun writing this week, but this story is going to bug me until I get it right.

Off to unload and reload the dishwasher. Maybe that will get the ol’ juices flowing.

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