Rejected!

My short story in the Writer's Digest Short Story contest was a non-winner.

Now THERE'S a surprise!

The only thing left up in the air is whether I made the top 100 list in short stories. I'm not holding my breath on that one, either, but it would be nice to see how I fell in the ranking.

If I don't rank I'm going to blame it on the fact that I used the "p-word" too many times. Yep, it was in there a bunch, but it called for it. There was no gratuitous "p" in my story.

There's an upside to not winning. To get to the 4,000-word limit, I really had to slice and dice it and cut out some parts I thought were necessary. It was a much better story - at least in my opinion - at 5,000 words than 4,000.

This is a tough contest and I did not expect to win. I've read some of the entries from past years and they are very good. Congratulations to those who did win and good luck in catching that brass ring.

Rejection project status: 24,555 words in 84 pages.

Yours in rejection,

Phil