Back in May, I sent off a short story to "New Love Stories Magazine" (It's Off), with my fingers crossed, but not really expecting anything.  And today I got:

Thank you for sending your story "Just Kiss Me". We have carefully read your story and it is under consideration. We have had a large number of well written stories submitted so your story may not be considered for publication immediately.

I wasn't quite sure what this meant, so I asked a friend who's written for this magazine for a translation and she said:

YEAH!!! This is good news. For real. Congratulations. They will tell you outright if they don't want your work. They have been swamped with entries.

Oh!  **letting translation sink in**  This means they didn't reject my story....  and this is a real magazine that pays real money.

Way Cool!!!  :-)  :-)

So, I'm really tickled today.

No publication date or contract, so things still aren't official, but if they're swamped with submissions it means they can afford to be really, really picky... and my story still made the cut.  Cool!  :-)