Rejection 14

I feel one season ending and another beginning, and I'm not talking about the summer to autumn transition. I have spent the year writing hard things that I needed to examine and release from my body. I took the step to send those words out into the world to see if they might get accepted for publication somewhere.

So far, they have been rejected by each place I have sent them. I have been upbeat about the rejections. In some ways, I have been relieved that they haven't been published. I have done the work and been accountable by submitting them, but as time passes, I understand that this particular season of writing and its results are primarily for me and my healing. I mustered a lot of courage to consider writing the words and the considerable more by sending out any of this work. I sent it all out. That in itself is a victory.

This particular rejection from Full Grown People stings more than the others. I have set my sights on getting published there. It's a personal goal, and so to learn that the editor is “taking a pass” on this essay feels more personal. I know it's absolutely not personal, but right now if feels like it. I feel a bit discouraged.

Three hundred rejections feels like A LOT of rejections. I know what 15 rejections feel like. How will 300 feel? It's also an incredible amount of writing.

I keep wondering, what do I have to say that will get accepted at this site? I feel emptied of things to say. This is actually a good thing. It means I've written myself dry. It's time to set down the submission writing and pick up the novel writing. I am learning how this writing life ebbs and flows for me: devote time, energy, and mental space to a project for awhile, feel its natural ending approach, pick up something else, repeat. I need the cycle to do its work, so I can be ready for the next thing.

By calling the submission season closed, I won't be distracted as I enter the novel writing season. That particular season closed last year when I'd worn myself out amassing 80,000 words and began writing draft two. I was spent. I needed time to rest, recuperate, and refuel. Writing essays refueled me. They moved things around in my mental attic space. Now there is room for me to consider the lives of my characters more attentively.

I'm ready to dive back into story telling. Acknowledging the sting of this rejection helps. I trust that I'll have other things to say later that will be considered publishable. I am not there yet. But I'll get there, and I'll be a better writer for all effort.