Oh, ugh! Those are the worst, where you wonder if they even looked at it.

Oh, honey. I"m sure that that won't happen. Besides, sooner or later you are bound to get some good news. Because I know how good you are.

Just keep at it. Keep holding out and putting your work out there. It'll happen.

The rejections can't get much worse than that, at any rate. (Knock on wood.)

Predict success, and it'll happen. Just don't give yourself a deadline on when that success will come. Just know that it will. I do, cause I know and respect what you do.

What you do.

I recently wrote to a friend who got accepted in "Poe's Progeny", my most recent "almost, but not quite" rejection. Anyway, I told him about the rejection and he "said" something like "well, that's all part of the game", and I sighed, and moved on. Because he's so, so right. And I know that, but each time I get a rejection, it feels like the end, when it's really the beginning. Another opportunity to find the right home for my work.

So consider it a beginning. A new year and a new opportunity. It will happen, and likely this year (I'm prescient too). So just keep on plugging along...and remember, when you're creating art, like you are, it's not as easy to place as "high concept fluff". The fact that everyone does see the magnificence and the splendor, well, that's just verification that what you've created is for the discerning, the enlightened, the beautific -- people like me! We're out there -- now find us!