Sending out my first three chapters of my first completed novel was an important milestone. Sending out my first professional short story submission was another.

Today marks another important milestone in the career of a would-be professional writer: I received my first professional rejection. The short story I'd recently sent out, which also lost two prestigious contests, also failed to interest the slush-pile reader of a well known science fiction magazine. Yee-ha!

Time to send out another one... and to resend that first story. Hmmm. I wonder where to send it next.

The story that I submitted to my critique group last Friday receives its crits on Sunday. I'll polish it up and send it out next week. So there!