Hello.

It's that time of month again. It's actually good that I'm a week behind, because I didn't have much to share last week.

That changed on Monday, when, in a span of eight hours, I received both a huge rejection and a huge acceptance.

In the Rearview

First, I didn't publish anything new this month. Well, I did, but it's all "pay the bills" writing and nothing super interesting.

Second, in September, I wrote about a story I've been working on all year. The current draft is about 7,000 words, but there are an additional 40,000 words (160 book pages) sitting in various Google Docs and on Scrivener. I envisioned the initial story as a book, but a shorter story ultimately was the better fit. Once I sell the shorter version, I will have leftover fodder for future stories for many years to come.

Anyway, my "dream" publication for this story passed on it on Monday morning.

They didn't just say no—they rejected it in less than 90 minutes.

In the writing world, unless you know an editor or something, most people submit their stories use an app called Submittable. Stories can sit in "In Progress" purgatory for months if a publication is considering your story.

Mine went from "Received" to "In Progress" to "Declined" within 90 minutes.

That means it got assigned, read (or skimmed), and trashed very quickly.

This was obviously disappointing. I have backup options, but it may involve some rewrites. Ultimately, though, I trust this story will end up where it belongs.

Down the Road

First, I sold an essay to one of the most prestigious literary journals in America, seven hours after my dream publication rejected my story.

It won't get published until March 2024, which is pretty standard for literary journals.

It's interesting, because I researched and wrote this story in the exact opposite manner to the story that I've spent the most time on this year. I wrote the first draft in about a week. In fact, I wrote it because I was stuck on a tough section of my longer story and needed a break.

Once I dove into the research, writing the first draft was fairly easy. I edited it a couple times, then shipped it away to three publications who I assumed would say, "It's pretty good, but no thanks."

It got accepted 32 days later.

Funny how things like that work out.

It's been a good reminder that you can't control everything, if anything at all. I can toss and spin words all I want, but I'll never quite know how someone else is going to take my writing until I share it.

Second, I'm working on a novel right now.

The subject matter of my last story was tough. It affected me in weird ways, and I promised to write something fun once I finished. So here we are. It's an entirely fictional story about scandal and sports. We'll see if the novel length holds up or if it morphs into a longer short story.

There's this annual event called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where writers are encouraged to write every day in November to finish the first draft of their novel. I've got nothing I'm working on besides this at the moment, so maybe I'll attempt that, but I'm not sure yet. It's a big commitment.

I'll send the November edition of The Long Road out sometime in November. Maybe in the thick of NaNoWriMo. We'll see.

Until then,

Ben Kissam