Tax day

Our taxes were e-filed by our accountant more than a week ago. We owed a chunk for Federal taxes, but it was still only about a third of what I owed last year. I mailed off the check to the federal government on Monday. We were owed just over $200 from the state and we received that check on Monday. I have yet to get to the bank to deposit it, but I’ll get around to it eventually.

The freelance writing portion of my taxes took a loss in 2008 because of no story sales. Since I’ve already sold a story in 2009, and I’m hopeful for others, maybe I’ll show another profit for this year.

I woke up this morning to a rejection note from IGMS for a story I sent there. It’s always disappointing to receive rejections slips, but in this case, there were a couple of silver linings:

1. Edmund took the time to detail what he felt was wrong with the story for him, and much of what he said made sense.
2. Three out of my last 4 rejection slips have had good comments and encouraging words from the editors. This tells me that I am continually getting better.
3. Edmund’s comments turn out to be very helpful for the “March” story I’m working on. I’ve been undecided about whether I’ve started the story in the right place, and the problems he identified with the story he returned convinced me that I have, in fact, started the newest story in the right place.

In any event, I plan on packaging up this story and sending it off to the next market just as soon as I can.

Originally published at From the Desk of Jamie Todd Rubin. You can comment here or there.