July is now over. We are seven months through 2020 and I have:
-8 short story acceptances
-29 rejections
-3 hold notices
-11 stories on submission
Friends! Please keep writing, finishing, editing, submitting, and taking care of yourselves.

If you've been keeping track you notice that's a jump in rejections. I got 9 rejections last month - nearly a third of my haul for the entire year. Most of them came in one uncomfortable week. Those weeks happen.

Some of the rejections were personalized. These are usually great! One was actually deeply insulting; I re-read it a couple days later with a clearer head to check and got mad all over again.

My advice remains: yell to your friends, but never reply to the rejection email.

One was a rejection from a solicitation for a reprint, which is always a ding in the pride. That was a polite rejection, though! (It's good to remember a solicitation is not a guaranteed sale. A lot of new writers eat themselves alive when this doesn't work out once. It's okay!)

There was also good news! I made one sale in July, to a market I'd never sold to before. It's for a story that's deeply personal both in its rep and in its quirkiness, and I'm terrifically happy that it will find readers. Probably late this year?

I also netted two new hold notices, bringing me up to three pending. I can't remember the last time I had three stories held at once.

I also technically made a second sale – yesterday, so, in August. This thread is a little later than usual. That story is an old darling of mine that had a long journey to finding a home. I’ll probably do a thread about its journey later.