Acceptances and Rejections: New Sales for June/July

First, let's talk about new publishing deals. I missed last month, so I'll cover both here. I have three new deals for that two-month period:

• "There's One Just Like it Everywhere" to Literally Stories

• "On Perfumed Wings it Ascended" to the Metaworker

• "The Liar's Club" to Idle Ink

Now, here's the fun part: To get those three acceptances, I had to send 56 submissions. Furthermore, during this period, I received 44 rejections.

Last month, I wrote about acceptance rates and dealing with rejections. Since then, my own rejection count has climbed to 760. Honestly, my main response to that is "I wonder how long it'll be until I hit an even thousand." It's actually a little funny. I'm even planning a little celebration when one particular venue deals me its 50th rejection (I'm at 44 rejections with them now).

This kind of bleak, self-effacing snark is how you get through this process. If you treat everything you write as brilliant and special, and you react to every rejection with an outpouring of emotion, then you won't make it.