Hi @marie097274, and welcome! Congratulations on taking the plunge into fiction writing! Publishing fiction differs from academic publication in many ways, but I think the most important is simply that you have far more people competing for a space to share their work. As a result, rejection is commonplace, and feedback is scarce. And there are many, many reasons for rejection that have nothing to do with writing quality... So above all, don't get discouraged! My first submissions were quickly rejected, and then I had the misfortune to receive a highly critical, and not very polite, review of the piece from one editor - so I stopped submitting for several years, which was a mistake. Eventually, however, I came back to (very) short fiction, and was more selective about where I submitted, which led (at last) to success. The lesson I finally learned was that one editor's opinion is just that - a single opinion. Someone else might love the same piece, it's just a matter of finding them.