Dichroic Reflections

The news

1. I have registered for JournalCon. San Diego, October 21-23. See you (some of you) there.

2. Somehow I didn't want to talk about his until now: part shyness (stop laughing), maybe part jinx, part a feeling that to mention it would be almost presumptous. I started writing fiction a little earlier I mentioned here; I got the story idea on my trip to Seattle at the end of March, wrote the story up, and submitted it to an actual paying market. (I knew I was shooting above my head, but couldn't and still can't think of a reason not to start at the top.) I finally heard back from them today, a rejection. My first ever. I guess that means I'm a real writer now.

The editor who wrote was kind enough to explain exactly why the story didn't work for him. I was crushed at first, not because it had been rejected (I figured that was likely) but because the flaw he'd pointed out seemed like an insurmountable problem with the logic. On further thought, though, I think if you look at it a certain way, the logic does work. I think I may be able to just add one explanatory sentence (the main character can see the problem and figure it out herself) to make that the natural way to look at things. I will add that sentence before submitting anywhere else.

At any rate, because I couldn't bring myself to talk about the story before, I wasn't able to get as much advice as I could. I did ask My Brother the Writer to look over it, and he was able to offer some very useful and detailed criticism (actually, I was impressed) but other points of view are always helpful, especially as I don't think he's submitted as much of his own stuff as he ought to. Now it's had its first rejection, I feel freer somehow. So: would anyone out there be willing to beta (or is that gamma) read it? I don't want someone to look at it and tell me it's good. I'm fairly sure it's not acutely painful to read, as slush goes. (At least it's grammatic.) What I want is dissection: what bits work or don't work for you and why. Sugar-coating's not necessary; if you tell me it reads like a first effort that should be used only to hone skills and shouldn't be published anywhere, at least you'll save me effort and postage. Also, any suggestions on what market it might work for would be very welcome. I'm new at this. (I know about Writer's Market and it's even in my library, but subjective feeling that there's a match would be helpful.)

Anyone?