Success or not - Did my short story get published?

Dear Robert.

Thank you for submitting "Sunglasses" to Midnight Echo.

Sadly, we regret to inform you that we are declining acceptance at this time.

This was an original piece, well written and approached taboos unlike anything I've read this submissions period. However, I felt that the emphasis was on the disgusting rather than the horror that arrived a little too late in the story.

Good luck in placing this submission elsewhere.

I have to return to work tomorrow.  The $58.36 before tax isn't coming.  Fortunately, the writing industry has prepared me for this occurrence.  In Stephen King’s book ‘On Writing’ he says he would stick his rejections on a nail.  He started submitting stories to magazines very young, but didn’t get published until he was 20:

By the time I was fourteen … the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.

I’m starting later than Stephen, but unlike tennis, the muscles required are less prone to old age.  The response is encouraging, and gives me a hint on how to improve.  Let’s see if somebody else is willing to publish.  Meanwhile, on to the next story...and continue with the novel.

But what about you?  Are you wondering what generated the phrase ‘emphasis was on the disgusting’?  What did I write about?  You’ll have to wait until a publisher picks it up to find out, or, in a couple of decades, when I’m rich and famous, I release a money-making anthology of short stories that no one would publish before.