That Complex Feeling

[kiya]

There is nothing quite so simultaneously encouraging and discouraging as a rejection letter in which the editor makes it clear that a) they loved the story and b) they could not manage to wedge it into the book.

'Tis a time for near misses, I suppose; yesterday's form rejection was in the mode of "You made it to a later round and we stared at it a lot but sorry, no."