Joshua Scribner, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Joshua Scribner
Streak confusion 3/7/2009 1:11:58 PM
When my streak of consecutive acceptances really started to take hold, I figured it was clearly defined. At some point a publisher would reject one of my stories and the end would be clearly marked. Life mocks my expectations. Last night, I received a response that was neither and acceptance nor rejection. It was a rewrite request. The wording of the request was along the lines of we want this story but need these minor changes. I thought that was closer to acceptance than rejection and decided, in my mind, the streak was still alive. Then, today, I got yet another rewrite request. This one was along the lines of we can't accept this draft of the story, but if you'd send us a second draft with the changes we want, we'd probably publish it. Okay, a little closer to rejection, but still ill-defined in terms of the streak. Well, I made the changes from the first rewrite request and now await response. I decided not to make the changes from the second one, but not because they weren't reasonable, more because I've been wanting to send that story to a different publication anyway. Because I did not publish the second story with the publisher I sent it too, and they had a part in that decision, I'm considering it enough of a rejection to declare the streak over. However, I now have a streak of consecutive rewrite request. Let's see how long that one last.
I want to talk a little about rewrite request. As a writer, these come up, and egowise (new word I think) they can be rough. The thing about it is, like a personal rejection letter, they can be extremely helpful. You don't want to miss out on the opportunity to improve your writing, no matter how stupid it makes you feel. That doesn't mean, you should always do what the editors say. On the other hand, it's good to be watchful for repeating themes from editors. One I kept hearing was, "I like this story, but it needs to be fleshed out more," or similarly, "I enjoyed this, but its seems like the skeleton of a much larger work." Based on this, I've been asking myself, "Is this story finished," as I'm editing.
