I have a story featuring a junkie named Yance that I really liked, but I could not sell it. Yance was just too unlikeable. The story was clever, but the character was a turn off. It was rejected over 30 times. I like the Yance character so much that I wrote another story about him. It has been rejected now 10 times and I am not sending it out again.

I received the last rejection today, and it was quite painful. A personal rejection from an editor is sometimes good, but when it is obvious that the editor really hated the story and is trying to be nice, it hurts even more.

The funny thing about the two Yance stories is that I still really like them, and I have already started a third story. This is getting to be self-destructive.