how I know I'm not a professional (yet)
So, I had this attack story which fit no guidelines I knew about. I saw a set of guidelines which was remotely like the story, but different in significant ways (including length). Knowing this to be a longshot, I queried the length requirement and the publisher graciously invited me to send the story along. Very soon after I received a polite rejection mentioning a couple of reasons why it didn't work for them along with a little faint praise.
I wanted to argue with them and pout and stuff. I wanted to tell them they didn't know what they were talking about, that the story was perfect for anybody just as it is.
I really had no call to: the story was not really what they had asked for and the terms they used to tell me why they didn't want it were perfectly reasonable.
But the story has no home, and I'm grumpy about it because I like it.
Oh well. It's not quite true it has no home: there's a couple of nonpaying outfits that would love it. Not overlapping in any way with the paying world.
On another front, I queried Firefox News about whether they'd like any articles about water issues for the science fiction writer.
This is entirely coincidental to the fact that I spent the day learning a whole new set of water quality tests for the dry-season Urban Watch program. I am now a volunteer employee of NOAA, I signed the papers (this only entitles me to workers' comp if I break my shoulder slipping around the creeksides or something).
I wanted to argue with them and pout and stuff. I wanted to tell them they didn't know what they were talking about, that the story was perfect for anybody just as it is.
I really had no call to: the story was not really what they had asked for and the terms they used to tell me why they didn't want it were perfectly reasonable.
But the story has no home, and I'm grumpy about it because I like it.
Oh well. It's not quite true it has no home: there's a couple of nonpaying outfits that would love it. Not overlapping in any way with the paying world.
On another front, I queried Firefox News about whether they'd like any articles about water issues for the science fiction writer.
This is entirely coincidental to the fact that I spent the day learning a whole new set of water quality tests for the dry-season Urban Watch program. I am now a volunteer employee of NOAA, I signed the papers (this only entitles me to workers' comp if I break my shoulder slipping around the creeksides or something).