But it’s not so cruel when it’s the *good* kind.

Several months ago, I submitted a short romance to Woman’s World magazine. At that time, the maximum word count was 1500 words.

I didn’t hear anything, didn’t hear anything.

Later, I read an interview with fiction editor Johnene Granger, which must have been in Writer’s Digest, which said they had reduced the word count on the short romances to 1100 words.

“Crap,” I thought.

But I still didn’t hear anything.

Yesterday, I finally got my SASE in the mail. It’s a standard form rejection, but it has a personal handwritten note from Ms. Granger.

Erin-
Our romance word count is 1,100 maximum. If you’d like to rework this sweet romance and send it back in, I’d be happy to take another look. No promises.

Rejection=bad
Personal, encouraging, handwritten notes from editors=good.

I am encouraged. 🙂