Not a great day, Thursday.  Got home to find a rejection from Analog.  A single sentence, as formulaic as possible.  No feedback.  No compliments.  Just no.

Nearly but not quite an hour later, I discovered an email from Apex magazine.  Apparently the story I sent them had “some wonderful prose” but the editor “couldn’t get emotionally invested.” At least I had lovely prose.  Not sure I’ve been told that before.  That story is one of my older ones and had really only gotten a facelift, tummy tuck, and implants from the original scheme.  (That is, tightened the wording, trimmed down some scenes, and added something to make the character more likable…not that implants make someone more likable…I’m going to stop now before I say something I’ll regret.)  Anything particularly “lovely” must have been there all along, like an ugly duckling.

I’ll have those stories back out by Monday.  I jut need to make a fix to the Analog story (TOL) and make sure I’m sending the right draft of the other (SR).  These are, incidentally, the two stories that were held and released by ASIM.  I must find them a home.