The Man Eating Horse
And people wonder why I get migraines.
I’m a freelance writer, and so I have a stack of rejection slips so thick I could paper the house with them. Although there is a company that turns rejection slips into toilet paper that I’m looking into. But I got the most mind-boggling rejection slip of my life so far yesterday.
This Ties In With Migraines, Trust Me
I’m currently trying to sell a speculative fiction short story about an incredibly beautiful Arabian-mix mare who also happens to need to feast on human flesh. (Well, no horse is perfect, right?) And, yes, I did send a specualtive fiction short story to a publication that published speculative fiction short stories. But this was the reason the editor rejected my story:
“It seems unlikely to me that a carnivorous horse would look anything like an Arabian.”
That just blew my head off. I didn’t realize the editor knew of a herd of carnivorous horses to make her basis of comparison. Silly me. I just used my imagination (and the legend of the eigth labor of Hercules, where he had to tame flesh-eating horses).
At first, I thought (hoped) she was being funny, but later on in the letter I realized she was being serious. Perhaps she wanted to sound like she was authority in the matter of the body shape of flesh eating equines. However, she failed to describe the suitable physical structure that a carnivorous horse should have.
That’s when the migraine started. This was worse than criticism headache. At least there’s usually some sort of reason grounded on the planet earth in order to receive criticism.
And, as a bonus, she took the time to correct “a few typos” and then send me back my corrected manuscript. By the way, she had two typos in her rejection letter to me. I’m starting to wonder if I would have a lot less migraines if there were a lot less people in the world.
So, please, everyone, enlighten this obviously ignorant freelance writer and tell me — what does a carnivorous horse look like?
June 6th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Probably like that editor.
Are you quite sure you can’t find some smarter people to submit you writings to?
I suspect, however, she was being pc about the whole thing and Arabian equals Muslim in her thinking organ.
Just for the sake of experiment, try substituting Arabian for Mustang or something and see how she would react.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I’m never sending anything to her again. (Now, if I can only remember her name…) That makes my world less stressful. I tend to use the “how much money does this pay out?” system of choosing which mags or e-zines to send submissions to.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:58 am
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