The Best Rejection

It's very strange, but I swear I had a feeling something was going to come in yesterday. I've been waiting to hear back from the latest editor/publisher about my short story and Woman's World magazine about my very short story. Somehow, I just felt that I would hear about one or the other. And I did. At about 9:00 last night, an editor from the publishing house I sent it to emailed me. In terms of rejections, it was the best possible scenario. She gave me a full paragraph on how I could improve my story, and then continued to praise my writing style. She mainly said I just needed to beef up on the character development and the romance elements a bit more to make it right for the genre.

The exciting news is that she said she thinks I have a lot of potential and in the future, she would like to see more submissions from me. Instead of sending future manuscripts through the slushpile of unsolicited projects, she asked me to send it directly to her. It means the world to me to know that an actual editor believes in me and thinks that I can be a good author. Sure, my very first manuscript needs a little bit of work, but how many people write a perfect manuscript on their first try? Even though I am disappointed that they won't be publishing my novella, I am very happy that I got such a positive response back. To me, it means that I am on the right track and so very very close to something great.