A doubleplusgood rejection

What with it being Friday yesterday, I naturally got an end-of-the-week rejection. However, this was the best rejection I've even had, because it came with a story number and a link to a site, and there was an in depth breakdown of what worked and didn't work for one of the readers as he progressed through the story. It's wonderful, like a workshop critique, and has given me much to think upon and be hopeful about. At the coalface, one often loses perspective, and I also know that I'm prone to indulging in the writerly equivalent of hamming it up rather than delivering the goods (though I'm getting better), so I really appreciate that this person took the time to provide such detailed, and nicely worded but not pampering, feedback.

According to the notes, and, to tell the truth, my own gut, the opening doesn't work. I've indulged it for far too long because I had so much fun writing it, but fun for the writer doesn't necessarily translate into fun for the reader. I should have strangled my little Lovecraftian darlings three drafts ago, or at least cut back on the torturous excesses produced by my keyboard. Unfortunately, I had such a good time writing it that I kept convincing myself that others would be swept along by my joie de livre.

However, the reader noted:

Clever, but I wouldn’t have made it this far I’m afraid. We see too many stories with pretentious prose that don’t know they’re being pretentious to easily recognize one that does. You’re going to need to shorten and sharpen the opening and get to this phone call sooner.

And so I will. Pronto. Further on, I got this, and my heart lifted:

This is a hoot. Once I “got it” this became a joy to read. But I’m odd that way and I doubt most of our audience will react the same way.

I don't mind most people not liking it, as long as a few, possibly odd, folk think it's a hoot. I love it so much that I wrote something that someone thinks is a hoot - that's how easy it is to make me happy.

There was more constructive criticism, and finally:

I suspect this will have to be restructured to keep an editor reading long enough to get to the juicy bits, but it’s not too far from being really good. (I bolded the bit I especially liked).

So on I go. As long as there is a smidgen of hope that this story will eventually be published, I won't give up. I shall labour some more on it, and then one day this story might be really good, possibly even doublereally good enough for some publication to buy, and on that proud day, I will loudly rejoice and do an interpretive dance of happiness and send thoughts of thanks to a certain reader and his notes (see what I mean about the hamming it up?)