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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16084
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

No honest attempt is ever wasted. At worst, you've practiced your skills and learned that this one didn't work at this time in this place.

And remember that many good stories were rejected by everyone the first time they were circulated, or were conceptually fine but the author's skills weren't yet up to doing them justice and were more successful later on after the author was more polished and better known.

If you're going to be an artist, of any kind, you need to accept that not every attempt is going to succeed, and those which are successful technically may still not find their audience until much later, if ever.

Competing publishers exist in the paying market (and why publishers compete with themselves, offering magazines which have similar subject matter but different editorial policy) precisely to provide the opportunity for creators and consumers to find each other. It's not at all uncommon for a story to be submitted to 20 different markets before someone picks it up.

Either try to find the right audience for this story, or set it aside and come back to it after you've gotten some distance and can evaluate it more fairly.

Meanwhile, remember that they haven't rejected you -- they just didn't pick up on this piece. Keep trying. This happens to _everyone_. It's inherent in learning a craft, never mind an art.

Original score: 1