The good news...and the bad

The good news is that I finished my first short story for my ghostwriting gig. I actually finished writing the story late last night - 7,000 words in two days, baby! - and this morning before leaving to work for one of my families, I proofread it and sent it off. The guy I wrote it for loved it! Although I'm looking forward to writing the next one, I actually need to take a day or two to finish some other work first.

The bad news: my short piece on a recent event didn't get such a hot response from the second publication I submitted it to, either. Realistically, the article was written for the first publication, which was more of a newspaper than a magazine. Although they didn't want to print it because it contained themes that they did not consider appropriate for their paper, they still said it was very well written. I didn't really want to rewrite the article for the second magazine, even though I expected they would want something a little different, since they won't pay to publish it, so I sent it as is; perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that I got a rather snippy email back. Rather than put more time into the article and still not get paid for it, I submitted it to an online publication that I write for sometimes. They don't pay all that well, but it's better than nothing!

Despite the good news, the bad news has made me rather cranky this evening. Usually I'm pretty good about brushing off rejection, but I'm particularly disgruntled by this one - perhaps because the guy criticized my piece, then expects me to rewrite it for him, and wants me to do so without pay. I'd like to think it's not just me - that I have a right to be upset about this.

I do have other pieces to write at the moment, one of which I intended to work on tonight, but now I find I'm not in the mood to write. However, I do have responsibilities to several other people at the moment, so I'll give it an hour or two and see how I feel then.