More rejection

So after my "good" rejection from Black Gate of my "depressing" story, I decided (hoped) that Chiaroscuro Magazine, being of a darker ilk, would be the proper home for it. Today I received the following rejection:

Thank you for sending "Of Its Own Accord" our way (though on the story itself, the title's given as "Her Own Accord"). I'm afraid we'll be taking a pass this time. I'm predisposed to like this sort of post-disaster scenario and there are some really nice, deft moments here, as with that initial imagined conversation. But Justin hovers a bit too uneasily between sensible and deranged, and the Phil-and-Derek storyline and the end of the piece don't quite come together for me.

Best of luck placing this one elsewhere, and please do keep us in mind for your future work.

Cheers,

Fiction Editor
http://chizine.com/

I don't know if I can count this among my good rejections. I suspect they give a line or two of ideas to every story, though I'm not sure. Anyways:

Justin hovers a bit too uneasily between sensible and deranged

Er, that's sort of the point of the story, so I'm not sure how to work on that one. I think I'll chalk it up to artistic differences.

the Phil-and-Derek storyline and the end of the piece don't quite come together for me

This one I understand, though that doesn't mean I know how to fix it. The ending isn't a direct cause-and-effect line, and I can see how some people wouldn't buy it. It may be time to put this story into the "Needs Serious Rewrites" folder.

However, I then looked at the history of this story, wondering where I can submit it next, when I realized that I never got an answer on it from Ideomancer. A loooooooong time ago. So long ago that at this point it is totally my fault for not following up. They wrote back once asking for it in a different format, I sent the new format, then...nothing.

And yes, I know I'm not supposed to sub to another market until I've heard from the one before (at least not without telling them) but I simply FORGOT. Obviously. Which is why I'll never be annoyed at editors when they don't get back to me. If I can't even keep track of my own submissions, how can I expect them to?

Heck, I can't even keep the title of my story straight. Though both titles are awful, I admit.

Ok, off to hassle the Ideomancer folk.