Ouch.

I just received an email from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (a respected semi-pro magazine in Australia) regarding “Leech Run”. It took them an impressively swift five days to reject it. Most zines don’t even see a submission for a couple weeks. ASIM does good work and has a fairly transparent review process with three rounds of reading. I made it past level one but got axed in level two. American Idol fans, that’s like going home the first night of Hollywood week.

Now I need to find a new market for “Leech Run”. I’m afraid I exhausted some good candidates prior to a major rewrite. I probably could send it back to Fantasy & Science Fiction, but it is considered bad form to send a rewrite to an editor who did not request one. So I may try The Leading Edge or…I don’t know, someone else. There is a bit of a limited market for short space opera. Novels? They seem to fly off the shelves.

Today I attended a teacher inservice about poverty, mostly an emphasis on differences between middle-class and lower-class students (and parents’) perceptions of and responses to things. There were some good insights there that I would love to use in a story, particularly how money is spent. I’m already forgetting a lot of it and don’t have a story or character yet. I guess I’m waiting for another idea that can piggyback with this one to make a story.

I’ve worked the last couple days on a piece for middle-grades kids (not to be confused with middle-class kids…I mean 5th to 8th graders). It needs some serious editing, but I got the first draft onto the screen in record time. Now to hack away 20-30% of the length so I can expose the real story and maybe then add a little back for aesthetics.

Hmm, it’s late and I’m yawning up a storm. I’ll ramble more when I have more to say on more sleep. Thanks for reading.

-Oso