Okay so actually this happened several weeks ago, and I just forgot to post about it until now. It's my tradition to post whenever I hit another rejection century, but my short story submission volume is wayyyy down this year, so it's taken quite awhile. Looking back, I see my last post like this (for my 1400th) was more than a year ago! That's a major slowdown. For awhile I was getting 100 rejections every 200 days.
As always, previous rejection milestones are listed below:
- 300 – August 8, 2008 (401 days to next milestone)
- 400 – September 13, 2009 (282 days to next milestone)
- 500 – June 22, 2010 (268 days to next milestone)
- 600 – March 17, 2011 (208 days to next milestone)
- 700 – October 11, 2011 (185 days to next milestone)
- 800 – April 17, 2012 (197 days to next milestone)
- 900 – October 31, 2012 (173 days to next milestone)
- 1000 – April 25th, 2013 (198 days to next milestone)
- 1100 – November 10th, 2013 (111 days to next milestone)
- 1200 – March 1st, 2014 (268 days to the next milestone)
- 1300 – November 25th, 2014 (264 days to next milestone)
- 1400 – August 16th, 2015 (438 days to current milestone)
The truth is that I write far fewer short stories nowadays. My last major spurt of short story writing was when I was at Burning Man last year, where I wrote six stories (none of which have sold! So much for the inspirational effects of the playa!) This summer I wrote 2-3, only one of which is any good. That one's been out for two months at a market well known for its short response times, so we'll see. Would be nice to sell it, as I think it's the most psychologically complex piece I've ever written (it's about an alien child, an immigrant to the Earth, that develops a sexual fixation on a human military hero).
Looking at my submissions log, I see that it hasn't just been rejections. Since my 1400th, I've also gotten acceptances from IGMS (my 3rd), Nightmare (my 1st), Interzone (also a 1st), Daily SF (my 5th), and a few other semi-pro magazines. Two of those stories, "Empty Planets" in Interzone" and "The Girl Who Escaped From Hell" in Nightmare, are amongst my favorite from those I've published. Both of them were written in the years since my graduation from my MFA. Which is nice. It's good to know that I can still turn a short story on occasion.