All is not lost on the competition entry front. I have been reading articles on dealing with rejection and acceptance of stories. One recommended keeping a record of where stories are sent and whether they are rejected or accepted. I was pretty happy, as I have been doing this since the beginning of the year. I have also kept track of when it was sent and any copyright agreements that may exist for each entry.
One thing that keeps coming up in most of the articles regarding rejections, is the recommendation to note the rejection and then send the story to the ‘next’ place. My story Second Chance was sent to a magazine competition back in April. I did not get accepted and strangely for my first real rejection, I was fine with it. (though this could have been as I did not actually get a rejection letter – just not a ‘you’re a winner’ missive).
As there were no restrictions on my copyright and the competition has no restrictions on stories previously sent to other competitions (which some competitions do), I decided that I might try out the recommendation and resubmit the story to this competition. With a final spell check, a format change (always check the competition requirements!) and reprint, it is now ready to go. My records have been updated. This is the first time I have resubmitted a story.
Ironic that the name of the story is Second Chance.