You know, as a writer I've learned to handle rejections. I'm always elated, of course, to hear from an editor that they wish to buy my story.

It's the in-between times that get'cha. Those long stretches of weeks and sometimes months when your stories are sitting there in some office or email inbox or Post Office box or buy pile and you don't know the fate of your story can really drag.

You play games with yourself. Well, you think, the normal response time to OUTSTANDING STORIES MAGAZINE is a month and it's been six weeks now so maybe, just maybe, they are seriously considering buying it . . .or maybe they're just behind in their reading . . .or maybe they never received it . . .should I query them and make sure they received it? No, they may be about ready to buy it and look upon a query as an intrusive forray into their already busy schedule so I should just be patient, because after all, their normal response time is a month and it's been six weeks and . . .

The best way to deal with this is, of course, ignore it and start a new story.

But sometimes, when you are waiting to hear back from an editor, ANY EDITOR, on one of the eight or nine stories you have in circulation, the mind plays tricks . . .you create new blocks. You find reasons to do something else until the vindication of a sale arrives in your mail box. You wonder if any story idea you have is good enough for the big mags or if it will just end up as another notch on the semi-pro belt. (And let me say, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with semi-pro magazine sales. There are plenty of very high quality mags out there that pay semi-pro rates.) Having not had a pro sale, it seems unattainable some days.

And that will last until the first pro sale.

Which will come.

In time.

Weeks or months of time.

Sigh.

Ain't writing fun?

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of the Abyss.