Way back in February, I took a fateful hike through the woods around beautiful Lake Liberty. Thus began my journey into the world of literary rejection. This post is not about the negative (or Beautiful) aspects of rejection but instead I thought I would share two awesome experiences that prove rejection isn’t all bad.

The first being an email I recieved from an  editor of Arcadia Literary Journal. I’d submitted three poems, the first poems I’d ever to submitted (and I now wish I had been in a more optimistic mood when sending) and they couldn’t be more different in terms of topic (the desire to be domestic, a virgin drug experience and obesession). The email from Mr. Giles started with the standard, “Thank you for submitting your work but we will not be able to publish it at this time” but then kept going…into a solid paragraph. I got the email on my phone and as I scrolled down the tiny screen of my blackberry I am sure my eyes were the size of quarters. Mr. Giles had taken the time to explain why it had taken so long for me to hear from his journal and not just explain, he broke it all the way down – all the way down- to a word. One word that created a phrase that was the hinge of my poem. This phrase, that depending on the reader, could make or break if the poem “worked”. I couldn’t believe it. Here was the reason that I continued to write because while writing had always been something I did for me, it was something I kept doing when it became something I could see connecting me with other people. It wasn’t real to me that someone actually read and enjoyed/ fucking hated my work until I got that email. What a heady feeling. My head was in the clouds for days.I thanked Mr. Giles for his time and effort and became determined to submit more work. I’d heard from all of the first wave submissions except one and as time passed I started to get excited that maybe I would have my first acceptance soon. Read more »

Aren’t the many  ”On Somethings,” the most pretentious and least creative of non-fiction titles?  No matter.

I recently experienced romantic rejection.  No big drama: just a girl I liked, and been friends with for a while, and we went on dates and things seemed great, but then she dropped the, “I just see you as a friend,” bomb, and I was momentarily traumatized.

But it got me thinking, tongue firmly planted in cheek, on the similiarties between literary and romantic rejection.  And since there have not been nearly. Enough. Posts. On rejection. On this. blog yet. And in all seriousness, most are quite good.  Here are my top 5 ways romantic and literary rejection are similar:

1.  You have to expect to be rejected.  You’re not going on any dates unless you have the stones to get a girl’s number and send an innocent little text message, which will hopefully turn into electronic flirtation, and finally a real date with actual talking and such.  Needless to say, literary magazines are not going to type your email address into the send field and ask for a story of yours that they’d like to publish. Read more »

Last week, I got a rejection.

This isn’t anything all that exciting. It happens from time to time. In fact, I have yet to have my fiction published. I’ve gotten some personal rejections, even a request that I resubmit, but nothing.

I know this is how it goes. I worked on the other side of it, after all. I know that stories can be good, can hold interest, but just not quite have enough of that unnamed quality that tips the scale from good to published.

But, all the same, I had a type of breakdown. I had felt so confident about this piece; I was sure it was ready to go. Except they told me there wasn’t anything at stake in the story. (!)

I moped around at work (though, strictly speaking, that probably doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the rejection). I complained like nobody’s business. I’m sure I drove my family crazy with my “I suck” talk. Then I drank half a bottle of wine, and I forced myself to sit back down at the computer. Then I allowed myself to take a few days off, despite my goal to write 6 days each week. When I did finally start writing again, I didn’t touch the story that had so twisted my writing self esteem. Read more »

Can you spot Liberty Lake?

Two days ago, I got my fourth rejection letter from a literary magazine.  It came to my email just four days after my third. Normally, despite my abnormally high self-confidence, this would’ve shattered my ego for a while but in between rejection #3 and rejection #4 a lot happened. It started with a hike.

Four MFAers (Tyler, Jason, Leyna and myself) set off on a slightly overcast Tuesday headed to Liberty Lake National Park to celebrate being on Spring Break. We wanted nature! We wanted to move other parts of our bodies besides our writing hands  and we wanted to prove that we could have wholesome fun (i.e Not imbibe alcohol). Or maybe those were my reasons for going. Anyways on the drive to Liberty Lake  (LL), a light misting rain started but we shrugged it off.  We thought: “We live in Washington. What’s a little rain, huh?” Tyler had his car radio on light Jazz which made everyone but me chuckle, which in turn made everyone laugh more. The banter in the car was light and relaxed. Jason noticed that despite Leyna, who sat in the passenger seat, Tyler’s car said the passenger seat airbag was off. I joked with her that she needed to eat more because that thing was activated by the weight of a normal adult. We all laughed.

It was a fun and short car trip. Then the roads got a little windy and the light Jazz Tyler had playing seemed like the last music I wanted to hear when we flew off the embankment but before I could pop him in the back of the neck, we’d arrived at park and I lightened up again. By now the rain, which was misting before, was falling steadily enough to make the three of us with hoods pull them up. We looked around and then looked at each other, doing that silent eye communication universal to humankind: “We going to do this?” “I’m down, if you’re down.”  “I could go either way.”  “Let’s do it!” So we set off into the forest.

Read more »

It’s summer, I don’t have to go back to full time teaching until the fall and in between the projects on my to do list for this time off (garden work that will never happen, filling out the paperwork for becoming an American citizen, brushing the dog, planning for lessons, watching bad TV) I thought I would do some writing. However, my motivation to put words on paper plummeted to the lowest low when Monday’s mail brought  two rejection letters. Scott, Shira, and Sam have already “barked” on the subject and I don’t have anything to add other than that this video cheered me up. Here’s Irish comedian Dylan Moran as the main character in the TV series Black Books reacting to a recent rejection letter.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS1NOXWVWgo

What do you do to cheer yourself up after one of these missives show up in your mail or inbox?