I am currently in possession of the nicest rejection letter on Earth.

Last August I submitted a short story to Black Gate Publishing, which is (to something of my shame) the first story I've ever submitted for publication. I didn't expect it to be accepted, of course, but they did sit on it a long time, so I was a little hopeful.

Today I got a letter from them, which below the standard rejection boilerplate had the following note from the editor:

Please accept my apologies for holding this so long as we considered it. It really is inexcusable.

Almost. I really enjoyed this one -- it's fast paced and exciting, and was a terrific premise. But it's not as original as a handful of others we're considering at the moment.

You have a real flair for ploy and character, and I hope you'll try us again soon. We've worked hard this quarter to eliminate our backlog andget our response time back to normal.

Like I said, nicest rejection letter on earth.

So I need to ship out my story somewhere else, now, and meanwhile write something new. And I already have an idea...