LET'S RUMBLE

When you submit a story to a print journal, you stamp the envelope and make sure there's an SASE inside and then you send it off. After you slide the manila envelope into the slot, you wait three to four months to get your rejection slip that you put in the shoebox with all the others.

If you're lucky, and someone took a shine to your story, you get a handwritten "Try us again" or "Sorry to disappoint you on this one."

Those notes are gold!

I submitted my first piece of flash fiction to the on-line journal rumble on Tuesday, February 28th. It was a piece I'd written specifically as a flash called "Lockdown," about a teacher who is experiencing a lockdown drill in her classroom, but since there was no forewarning, she isn't sure if it's real or not.I sent it in about 7:30 a.m.,just before work, using my work e-mail account.

By 9:30 the editor had e-mailed me back and said he got the submission and, based on an initial reading, he thought the ending should be more "wry, sarcastic, or surprising."

I couldn't believe it. Feedback on my story in less than two hours. Amazing.

So I e-mailed back and asked if I should revise and re-submit or just take my chances. In less than another two hours, he'd responded again. He said the submissions wouldn't make their way to the editors for another few weeks, so I had time to play around with the ending and re-submit.

Dialogue with an editor and a chance to revise and resubmit based on editorial feedback.

Miraculous.