I heard from Highlights

Well, I heard from them.

The news was not good but reassuring.

I received an email a couple of days ago from the senior editor. She said that she couldn't use it, but it was an interesting piece. She even gave me clues on how to make it dynamic. So, Highlights blew me off.

I sent her a couple of reply emails thanking her, and she returned them with even more advice on improvements.

The piece will never be published by Highlights, but it was a reassuring sort of rejection. Because, I wasn't rejected via a form letter. Highlights is famous for their checkmark rejection slips, and I bypassed that. I received a bonafide rejection from a person with a name and an email address. She took the time to discuss improvements, so that tells me that at least I don't wholly suck at writing.

Writing for children was a new experience for me and I see now why people say that writing for kids is harder than writing for adults.

Will I stop?

No!

I intend on taking her advice and improving the piece. Then, re-submitting to another magazine. But, I'm gonna wait a little while. You see I saved her emails in my email folder. That way I can look at them and see that there is encouragement out there. I can see that all editors aren't born with teeth that would make a pirahna proud. They aren't out there to suck the life and livelyhood out of fledgling writers.

I'm going to wait though to work on my adult romance novel. I want to give the piece a little simmering time, and then try to approach it like I would imagine an editor might. I am afraid that if I try to do it now...I'll be careless and a little (or a lot) to proud and mess it up instead of helping it. Cause, I'm still sitting on my high horse right now. I made it past the form letters!

Well, my novel is getting finished while I'm writing something else...and my daughter currently has poison ivy all over her body and she begging for some more calamine lotion on all her itchy spots, and I assure you that there are several. :)