Rejection Letter Blues
Yeah, I know we all get them. Well, I hadn’t anyway -- not for years, and mainly because I hadn’t submitted anything short story-wise. I sold articles. Editors gobbled them up. Critiquers, reading and reviewing, my novel-in-progress on a chapter by chapter basis for the past six months, have been very positive in their feedback and their edit suggestions have been minor and few. But on the urging and challenge of my fearless leader, our senior editor Kay Patterson, I dabbled with short story writing again -- mainly flash and micro fiction. I got hooked actually. I enjoyed slipping into my little broom-closet office to create mini tales. I wrote over two dozen since April.
Emboldened, by the exaltations of my wife and family members (no, I didn’t submit any of the tales to my writers group. Dumb I know), I submitted the stories to a handful of worthy markets.
Like you, and every other writer, I waited and waited; religiously checked my email twice, thrice, six times a day for over a month and...
Wham! Bing, bing. Zip.
In came the rejection emails!
Oh the pain! Oh the shame!
They were form rejections for the most part. I shunnd my broom-closet. Refused to peek at my email account.
The I got one little gem from an editor that almost mad me cry. It wasn't an acceptance letter, but it was so kind.
The longest tale I had sent out, a dark fantasy piece of 2,200 words, garnered a kind response from an editor who took the time to write:
'I really liked this story. We pondered it and tried to fit it in, but in the end, we felt it just didn’t match up with the other tales in the anthology. But do try us again. There's still time to send us something else. We really liked your storytelling style. Your narrative voice and empathy for the main character, Nick, really sucked us in. Well, done.'
~ sniffle, sniffle ~ I actually printed the email out and pinned it to the red IKEA bulletin board on my closet wall.
Kay’s advice to me:
'Snap out of it! Review your stories, read ‘em out loud, tweak ‘em and send them out again to another market. Buck up, Philly. (She’s the only one who calls me Philly). You'll sell a few of them, I'm sure of it. Keep trying.'
So that’s what I’ve been do the past few weeks. Rereading and tweaking. It's also my excuse as to why I haven’t posted anything on my blog for June. I was pouting. Alright, I admit it. I wallowed in self pity, watched baseless TV, downed a six pack over a period of 3 weeks (I hate beer), then I crawled back into my broom-closet and printed out each tale to read and edit them.
Now I’m back. I’m jittery, knowing 10 of my tales are out there, knowing they may bring me more rejections; but my hide has thickened, my bruises have healed. I’m ready to take what ever the editors hit me with, though, please, please I pray it'll be more niceness if not a sale!
The moral to this blubbering:
Hey, if I can Buck Up, Regroup, Revise, and Resubmit -- so Can YOU!
And for those of you that are equally crushed by a simple rejection letter:
I feel your pain. Been there, done that. Hated it!
