Jean Rosestar has a post up about rejection slips (“Reasons to Keep Writing and Submitting“). The post, an article written by someone else, ends with:
And do what F. Scott Fitzgerald did…wallpaper a wall with your rejections slips. There isn’t a writer alive that doesn’t have them.
Er, I don’t have any.
Honest.
I’ve submitted short stories, essays, articles, and 1 novel. All that I have submitted has been published. I’ve been sieving through the memories in my brain and I can’t find a time when I’ve been told “not for us” or “are you nuts?” or something similar. Way back in college I had some bad poetry turned down but that didn’t get a letter. That got a “What about that short story you read in class?”.
My publication list isn’t long, true.
I’m not bragging. Far from it. I am still shell-shocked about my book and I still shake my head when I think of the other publications I have. At no time did I seriously think I would be accepted. My point is that not every writer is going to be rejected. Yes, there is adequate reason to gird your sensitive writer loins and be prepared for that return letter from either a publisher or an agent. Yes, the vast majority of writers will get such turned down. It is a competitive market, especially mainstream. We writers are trained to do that, perhaps trained more in that than we are in anything else.
My short story and essay in Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal stood a good chance of being turned down. I thought the essay would be. But, the essay (“Growing Up On the Farm”) was heavy Southern and decently written. Both are what Kathy Rhodes was/is looking for. The short story (“Arrivals and Departures”) wasn’t exactly Southern, but it had that Southern feel to it based on its rural flow and setting. I really thought she’d turn it down and submitted it looking more for feedback than an acceptance.
An online acquaintance asked me to write “a little something” about myself and my owner-trained Service Dog for a relatively new publication called EDSToday. That “little something” grew into eight articles.
I wrote two articles for an online publication called Vision: A Resource for Writers. I didn’t have much of a publishing history under my belt at that point but I had some experience to share. I was surprised both times when Lazette Gifford accepted.
Then there’s the book I submitted. I sent in “Butch Girls Can Fix Anything” because it was a romance and I wasn’t as attached to it as I was/am the Fantasy “Simple Sarah”. I figured its rejection would hurt less. So imagine my surprise when Regal Crest Enterprises offered me a contract three weeks later.
My writing is not that good. My style is too weird, too fluffy. But I must be like a lucky fisherman who just happens to drop his hook in a nest of hungry trout. I submitted what each place was looking for and made sure to do it in the format they preferred. I had the right bait, I reckon.
Linkage:
Muscadine Lines, A Southern Journal
Vision: A Resource for Writers
EDSToday
List of my publications
Jean Rosestar’s blog