When I get an email from a magazine I submitted a short story to. The process goes like this. I visually register the email in my inbox. I realize it’s from a magazine. Immediately my mind throws up the mental Rejection! sign and I start thinking about where I’m going to send the story to next. Oh well, I think. It’s part of being a writer, right? We’ve got to learn to accept criticism and rejection and move on.
Then I actually click the email and it says, Congratulations! We want to buy your story!
….
….
I refresh the page to make sure I got the right email, and that this isn’t some lotto spam or some guy in Spain trying to get me to hand out bank account info.
….
….
When the marbles click, I start to grin like a fool. In celebration, I do what most guys do. I punch something. Namely the floor. Fortunately it’s carpeted. My knuckles get rug burn. I can’t stop grinning for the next five hours! It’s like getting a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.
My short story, “Even Songbirds are Kept in Cages,” is being bought by the speculative fiction magazine Shimmer. Not sure yet what issue it’s coming out in, but every issue they’ve put out has been gorgeous and gets great reviews. Still jittery and having fun looking over the materials they sent me. Who knew contracts and questionnaires could be so fun? Still smiling.
It’s the moments like this that make all the mailings and revisions and the “business” side of the craft worthwhile.
I see that smile.
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