Well, as predicted, today is precisely three months after I last submitted a story to Asimov’s magazine. This time around, I didn’t even rate a rejection letter. To quote the magazine’s Web site: “If you have not heard from us within three months from the day you mailed your ms., you can assume it was lost in the mail, and are welcome to resubmit it to us.”

So here’s the thing–I’d really rather submit to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, because their slush pile editor, John Joseph Adams, is notoriously quick about his turnarounds. When last he rejected me, it took a mere 10 days. I’d run the story in question to the post office today except I’ve already got a story into F&SF, one which I mailed in on Sept. 9. So it’s also been ten days since I’ve heard from that magazine. I’ve just got to wait it out with Mr. Adams before I ping him again, because you can’t have two stories in process at the same magazine at the same time. (Well, not unless they solicit the stories from you, which is not, and likely never will be, the case from yours truly.)

The odd thing is, the story that is in process right now was a complete change of approach for me: A comedic fantasy/horror lark I wrote as a bit of an inspired exercise. It turned out FAR better than I expected, so I actually have a very faint hope for this one. The story Asimov’s didn’t bother to reject is a pretty strong one, but it goes a little blue on the language and tries to breathe some life into a somewhat cliche sci-fi trope by changing the approach. That one, I have less confidence in, but I really don’t want to give up on it yet.

If I strike out F&SF on both works, I’ll start shopping them to other venues, maybe even some online mags. Who knows, maybe I’m just overshooting. Mostly, I just need to write better.

Back to the salt mines…