Tomorrow will be 50 days since sending the story to ANALOG. Aside from it being a nice round number, it’s more than 20 days longer than any submission I have ever sent there (the longest previous submission I got back in 29 day; that was back in 2003; the most recent submission I got back in 28 days and that was in 2007). I can think of three possibilities:
1. The story has made it past the slush pile and is being considered.
2. The holidays created a backlog and it’s simply taking longer than usual.
3. The story was lost in the mail.
The optimist in me is hoping for #1, of course. I think it’s a good story. Regardless, no news is good news when it comes to these kinds of things. I remain hopeful.