It's one of those things. You've written the perfect article or story. You have the perfect market. You submit. Your masterpiece is rejected. You begin the process again, only to be rejected again. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe your article isn't a masterpiece; maybe it falls into the category of the "unpublishable." Or maybe the timing is all wrong. I've seen both. I've written some pieces that will never be published, for whatever reason. I've also written two articles that I (almost) never gave up on. Those two articles are my "lessons in persistence."

Lesson #1-Woman of Independence: When I was in college, I wrote a paper on the women who fought in the Revolutionary War. One of my sources was a 1975 edition of National Geographic. In 1994, I began taking the ICL courses. I also had the same copy of the magazine come across my desk. Forgetting that I had used it as a source years earlier, I began reading it. I became fascinated with a woman named Mary Katherine Goddard, who is credited with printing the Declaration of Independence. I needed a nonfiction article for the ICL course; it was perfect! I even wrote a revision of it for "Beyond the Basics" a few years later. All the time I was submitting it, thinking it was ready. Apparently it was not. Either that, or I hadn't found the right market.

Unfortunately, in the early years of my writing I didn't keep very good records (holding onto all those rejection letters just didn't make sense to me), so I can't tell you all the markets I tried. I know I tried Hopscotch every time it fit one of their themes. I queried Cobblestone and Appleseeds but never heard from them. I considered American Girl, but they didn't want it, either. The Cricket family of magazines didn't want it. I submitted to Educational Oasis, and was accepted! Then I got it back. The magazine had folded before they could publish my piece. I put it away for a time, thinking it was unpublishable unless I could get my hands on the primary source documents, which were in Baltimore. Highlights wouldn't consider it without them, after all. Then I learned about Learning Through History magazine. The editors were planning a theme on Colonial America. Could I have a prospect? But they didn't want articles about the War.

This past summer I decided I would try new markets for some of my old, unpublished pieces. Yet I put off submitting Mary. All those rejections kept coming back to haunt me. I had made a list of markets I was pretty sure I hadn't tried: Wee Ones and Guideposts for Kids. Wee Ones didn't need nonfiction right then, so that left GP4K. I double-checked it, made sure everything was in order, composed my email, and hit the "send" button. I had done all I could do. Now it was up to the editors.

That was November 5, 2005. Within a week I had an email from Rosanne Tolin, the editor. It was fascinating, she said. Could I include some subheadings and send it back? Of course I could. I was resubmitting within three days.

When the three-month response time had passed with no response, I contacted the magazine. I was asked to resubmit. I didn't ask why. Again I waited. Then, on March 29, 2006 I received an email asking for my contact information so that they could send a contract. On April 28, 2006, it came. I signed it and sent it back. Even though the magazine has folded, they paid me $100 in May 2006. I can't resubmit for six months due to the contract I signed, but I can wait that long to try Wee Ones again.

While I was waiting to hear from GP4K, I began browsing the Learning Through History website again. This time they were looking for pieces about the Revolutionary War. Deadline: January 30. Length: 900-1300 words. The version I had sent to GP4K was only about 700. The longest I had ever written it was 750. Could I lengthen it without getting too wordy? Of course I could. Maybe I could get "double mileage" out of it. I had plenty of information. All I needed was a different angle. My sample of LTH showed very little of what I call "straight narrative." But they did use a mock interview format that I thought I could imitate. It worked. Between the reporter's questions and the conversational style, I was able to lengthen it to the necessary word count. Then I cut and pasted it into an email and hit send. I thought all I had to do was wait. But I never heard from them. When the response time had passed, I realized what must have happened. I have a feeling that it never arrived, that it was lost in cyberspace. It was too late to resubmit. It was already April. The issue in question had already gone to press. So much for getting "double mileage" out of it, at least for now.

Lesson #2-Animal of the Long Tongue: Another piece I wrote for "Beyond the Basics" began with my curiosity with the okapi, a mysterious animal of the African rainforest that is the only known relative of the giraffe. Again, I made the revisions my instructor had suggested and began submitting. I had more potential markets for animal pieces than for history pieces, so I thought I'd have better luck. Wrong again.

Again I tried Highlights. (In case you can't tell, I really, really want to be published by them; Highlights was my favorite magazine growing up). Again I tried the Cricket family. I tried Boys' Quest. (They had a theme about unusual animals). I tried Nature Friend. I considered Ranger Rick, but never got around to submitting to them before they stopped accepting submissions. I tried Sunday School papers. Now unsure of its quality, I filed it away for another day.

In the meantime I kept looking for markets. I thought Hullabaloo would work if they ever had an Africa theme, but it folded after only a year's worth of issues. Children's Magic Window was a possibility, but I never got around to it, either, before it folded. All I could do now was continue to look for markets and wait.

This past summer I pulled it out, too, and made another list: Wee Ones, Guideposts for Kids, Clubhouse. I submitted to GP4K in May, or at least I thought I did. I have a feeling this is another case of an email getting lost somewhere in cyberspace. It doesn't matter, though. On October 11, I printed a copy and mailed it to Focus on the Family Clubhouse. On November 18 I received a contract in the mail. I immediately signed it and sent it back. My check of $125 came in December 2005. Now all I have to do is wait for my sample copies in the mail. (And submit to them more often).

This journey to publication has taken over ten years. These were not my first acceptances, and they certainly will not be my last. While I do have a stubborn streak, I've always taken rejection hard. There were times when I almost stopped writing. But maybe finally having these pieces published, or at least accepted, will help me keep on "plugging away" at this writing thing, not giving up on pieces I believe in.