Rejected!

There is, I think, little purpose in writing a story or a poem and then locking it away forever so no one but yourself will ever see it. Stories and poems are meant to be shared, even if its only with single, close friend. And one must certainly want to share their stories with the world if they want to get them published. To do this, you must cross the threshold from the safe world of the private, to the larger, frightening world of the public by sending off your writing to be judged by editors and agents, who will then judge your work. Perhaps they might love what you send them, but more than likely starting out like I am, their response is going to be this:

Rejection.

Rejection sucks. That’s all there is to it, really, be it applying for jobs, schools, asking someone out on a date, or stories. I’ve never met anyone who enjoys being rejected and probably never will, as it can be disheartening, or even worse, devastating. Because of such, rejection can be downright scary. What, however, is worse? To try and be rejected, or to never try at all? I believe it is the latter. For if one is at least making an effort, their life is at least moving in a good direction. The alternative is stagnation. At one point, I was not doing anything, and I felt like I was drowning in the muck. Then I started to truly devote myself to what I loved, and things began to change. I’ve not met much success as of yet (just a couple of stories published in some local publications), but it’s a start. And if I never tried at all, I would never have even accomplished that.

And rejections, as you get more of them, get easier to handle. The very first rejections for my writing that I ever received were for the first novel I wrote. I sent it out to exactly two agents who both rejected it, and rightly so. The novel I had written was terrible, but I learned some valuable lessons from it: 1) The effort required to actually write a novel 2) The World that I would be entering if I wanted to try and publish things. Probably less than half a year after this, I stopped writing for awhile. For more than a year I stagnated, knowing what I wanted to do but not making an effort to work for it. When I finally discovered what I truly wanted and that only hard work would make that happen, I started writing again, and later, sending short stories out, only to meet with more rejection.

The idea of how I approached the rejections, however, shifted. At first, a rejection was disheartening. Then, I eventually was able to shrug them off. Now, however, while I certainly do not like receiving them (a check would be much more welcome), I now view them as something to motivate myself. I can become better; I can improve. Rejections I now think of as puzzle pieces in what will be the picture of my eventual success. They are not something to be disheartened by; they are fuel!

Rejection letters, for those who have not seen them, are interesting things. Almost all of them, due to the amount of submissions that editors and agents receive, are form letters. Very rarely are they personalized. They are straightforward, usually written to let you down in a kind manner, and frankly, are maddening (especially if you’ve been waiting several months to hear back). It’s after receiving lots of these that even just a short personalized rejection in which the editor or agent says what they liked or did not like about the piece shines like a fire on a field of barren snow.

Most of them, however, go something like this:

Dear writer:

Thank you for your submission, but it is unsuitable to our present needs.


Pretty cold. I’ve got a nice pile of these growing on my desk next to my monitor. There are variations between them. The ones I’ve received from the Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy are better than most; they respond in an extremely short period of time (last story I sent to them I heard back on in under two weeks), and they go a bit farther than others do; they take the time to actually address the letter to you and include the title of your piece out in it, and their form also wishes you good luck (plus they send out their letters on half sheets of paper which for some reason I find cute).

The growing pile of rejection letters gives me motivation, but also gives me physical proof that I am trying, and that gives me confidence that someday I will succeed. As Stephen King wrote, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

I’m not going to say if I’m a talented writer, but I am talented at sticking with it.

I’ll end this post with a poem I wrote sometime last year about dreams.

Thank you for reading and best of luck in all of your dreams and endeavors. Cross the threshold. It's worth it.

* * *

Emeralds

by Mark J. Reagan

Mist-born emeralds
Fall on Painted Girl
Sleeping in tall grass.
Reflections of moons
Stain silk robes.
Sun’s breath dries
Willow fan and
Reeds sway as
Verdant butterfly
Settles on
Woodcut cloud.

Stone Traveler watches
In desaturated hues.
He kneels down, rivers
Crack in his bones.
Granite hand caresses
Her face.
Time fails
And skips over
Rippled water.
He lingers, but
knows he must go.

With emeralds gathered
Stone Traveler moves on
Leaving Painted Girl
To wake in starlit dew.
Her fingers brush
Over her cheek and
She weeps.

Writing and Dreams

Dreams, I find, are amazing things. They are like fuel for life. No matter how big or small, they will take you where you wish to go and bring you to places you never thought possible. They can support and heal you in times of pain and troubles. Dreams may be attained, sometimes lost and even found. They can be destroyed, but only if allow them to be. And, most of all, they can be shared. Dreams are more precious than flawless diamonds; never give them up.

I take solace in dreams, for they the intangible that can be forged into the tangible with passion and hard work.

My dream is to become a professional writer. And I do so love to write! (Speculative fiction primarily; science fiction/fantasy short stories, novels, and the like) So much that I have apparently decided to blog about it, the pursuit of my dream, and other things. I have little in my life that I am happy with. My writing and my friends are about the only things on that short list.

So why not write about writing? About trying to become a professional writer? Sure, it’s been done before. If I let that stop me, however, what kind of person would I be? What kind of dreamer? There have been thousands of professional writers before me, what’s one more, really? The only way I know to answer that is that there is nothing I would rather do with my life. And when one has a passion that overwhelms all else, there is little choice then to follow it; the alternative, as I have experienced, is to wander the caverns of depression. I think that by blogging about it all, it might help keep up my motivation and spirits among the lonely work and the growing pile of rejection letters. And (I hope) that you or other readers might find the whole thing interesting and get something out of it.

I can’t promise that this blog will always be entertaining, but what I can promise is that it will always be honest. As Stephen King says, “Write nothing but the truth.” I’ll try.

To start off this, I’m posting a short reflective piece that was assigned to me several months ago for a class. It is a reflective piece about how and why I write. It could certainly be made better with another revision or two, but as is I can think of no better way to start this blog and to introduce myself.

* * *

I am surrounded by people.

They come here for coffee, perhaps chai, or maybe just for the companionship of others. I, cliché as it may be, come to write stories. A simple thing that could be done anywhere really, and it could be done in places that are much more quiet. The conversations and sounds of espresso machines and clinking coffee mugs become little more than a comforting background noise. At least, most of the time.

Perhaps they look at me and wonder what I’m doing; I imagine most figure that I am doing school work, which is sometimes close to the truth. There is, however, another reason I come to work in coffee houses, one I don’t think most of the people around me ever even guess. Secreted amongst them at my table with my laptop and coffee, I am not just a writer; I am also a thief.

I will sometimes pause to eavesdrop on their conversations and pick up the most fantastic bits of information. I wonder how much they realize they actually say? Not much, I figure. How could they when I have heard things like, “I owe them five-thousand dollars. I am so fucked.” Or, “She’s pregnant.” And also, “Last summer my son committed suicide.” It is said in the open so none of it is sacred to me. I will steal shards of speech and fragments of their lives to store away in the warehouse of my mind for later. It will show up here and there in my writing and none will ever know. I have taken something of value and they will never realize it.

I am a magnificent thief. Every writer must be. It is said that one can only write what they know, and to an extent that is true, because we write from experience. It would be impossible for one to experience everything, however, so those unknown experiences need to be gleamed from others whether they realize it or not. Listening to others, I believe, is a key skill for any writer, not only to be able to pick up interesting and inspiring tidbits (for even the most mundane piece of dialogue my provide the inspiration for an entire story), but also for the process of writing good dialogue and characters.

I love writing. There is little more I can say in this world that I love more. Once, I would have said that writing is like breathing for me, but such a phrase is somewhat cliché, and not entirely accurate. If I never wrote another word I would not puff out like a candle flame placed in a vacuum. Instead, I now equate my writing to being able to see, for writing is a type of vision. Writing grants the ability to see a subject through an infinite number of different lenses no matter what the genre or type. If I stopped writing I would not die, but I would be blind, unable to see and interpret the wonders of information and theme in the way that only the written word can provide me.

Beyond the joy that I receive from writing, there is a greater happiness that waits beyond the act of pounding out word after word. That act, like writing, is a simple one: it is the act of telling a story. A story is something that conveys information, but is of course far more. Beyond information, a story can convey theme and value, and most of all, it can entertain. Some think that the meaning of a story far outweighs its ability to entertain the reader. I disagree. I believe that a story’s primary purpose is to entertain. The reader should be delighted to read it, for if they do not enjoy the story, what reason would they have to delve into the treasures that lie beneath its surface and come away from it with something more of value?

The sharing of a tale that I have written and knowing that someone enjoys it (even it that is only one person) brings me tremendous joy. For what is the purpose in writing a story if not to share it? I want to share my stories. I love writing them, and I love seeing others’ reactions to them, so how could I suffer a tale I have written to be locked away on my computer? There is nothing I would rather do than write and share my stories—for if one loves something, why would they not pursue it with their entire being? It is for this reason that I work toward making writing into a career. It may sound ridiculous to some to even try; how many writers can make a full-time living off of their work? Not many, but I will not stop pursuing such a goal even if I have to live in squalor for the rest of my life. Even if I never make a single dollar I would not stop writing. Writers (or at least the ones who want to make money), are not also thieves then, but also prostitutes trying to sell themselves for the pure enjoyment of others with the hope that the client gains something deeper than pleasure from the shared experience. No one expressed this with more eloquence than Moliere who said, “Writing is like prostitution. First, you do it for the love, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money.” An odd truth, but a truth nonetheless.

On a basic level every prostitute would be the same. It would be the methods that differ. It is the same with writers. There are millions of novels. Each contains a story. It is the ideas and methods that make one different from another, even if they have a similar plot or identical themes. I write in coffee shops because it helps facilitate my writing; there I am comfortable and free from the distractions of home which are like dire blasts of snow in a never-ending storm. There, in my paradoxical space that is private yet being in the midst of others, I am free to craft each story in peace. Each story is of course different from the others. Even if they do share similar elements my process is the same. A story is birthed from an idea. The idea never comes from thin-air or a muse even if it seems like it; it comes from a trigger in the environment (perhaps one of those stolen snippets of conversation or experiences) or an idea that goes to dwell within the caverns of the subconscious to grow and mature until it is ready to emerge from the depths. A story is not fully matured until much later, after the initial writing and the proceeding revision.

For myself a piece is ready to at least be written when it has the following two elements: a beginning, and of course, an ending. A story is like traveling. One needs to know where they are leaving from and where they are going. What happens in-between the beginning and the end is something that unfolds naturally and will surprise me if the characters are allowed to act in a true matter that is not forced; and if the destination you arrive at in the end is not the original one that is aimed for, that’s just fine, because it will be true. For this process, I do very little in the way of plotting or outlining. Such methods I feel would result in the story feeling forced. What I do is have ideas for specific events that may or may not happen, similar to marking locations on a map that you would like to visit along the way to your destination. To perhaps over-simplify the process, writing a short story or a novel is like going from point A to point B in a logical progression based upon your characters and the inciting incident. Many books on writing will say something similar, and when I see a writer who does not know where their story is going, they tend to flounder somewhere in the middle and have a very difficult time making any progress: writer’s block, caused not by some mysterious force, but by rather starting on an incomplete and rushed idea; for if you begin a trip without knowing where you are going, how can you be anything other than lost? This is what works for me; there are other writers who enjoy being lost along the way, and then at the other extreme, writers who outline every event; such methods feel alien to me. What matters in the end, however, is not how the story was crafted, but whether the final version is good or not. As the saying goes, what works, works.

To make a story work, there is of course more than just getting it down on paper. One must revise a story in an effort to make it stronger; I equate it to making pottery. Just getting the clay down on the wheel is one part. One must then work on shaping the clay into a thing of beauty. It is because of this that revision is a process absolute in its necessity. The individual who believes that their work is perfect after one draft and needs no revision is a fool. Many disdain revision because it can be a tiring process and can require a lot of work, sometimes more than it took to write the piece in the first place. I love it, just like the rest of the writing process. It is like watching a child grow and nurturing them so that they can reach for their full potential. What could bring more joy than that? The amount of drafts is variable; there is no right answer for how much work a piece needs. Stephen King in his book On Writing says that each piece he has goes through two and a half to three total drafts. Some pieces might require more rewrites than that; the number needed is that to make sure the story works as well as possible. One could revise a story endlessly; at some point it must be declared done.

There is not one singular person or event that has inspired or nurtured my love of writing. The seed of that love I believe is far back in my childhood, when with my friends I would exercise that which makes every human being infinite and marks them with unlimited potential. That thing is of course the imagination. Everything spawns from imagination, be it a story that I write, a nuclear reactor in a scientist’s head, or even a tacky hat that holds cans of beer so that you don’t have to. As a child I participated in epic battles with swords and lasers with my friends against an unlimited supply of aliens and robots. I think that these acts of play helped my imagination grow and certainly fostered my love for storytelling. The only real difference between now and then is instead of shouting out “PEW PEW,” “ZAP,” “SWOOSH,” and other sound effects is that I write them down in what I hope is a clear and more eloquent manner.


I am surrounded by people.

They have come here not for coffee or chai, but instead for the release of a local publication. I am not listening to them, but instead they listen to me read a story that I have written. I finish reading. In each face I can see a different reaction—some smile, some are horrified, others are indifferent—but the applause is genuine. The majority of them have enjoyed my story, and for that I am grateful. I am giving back to them. As a child, the love of telling the story and participating in it with others was everything.

It still is.

* * *

Welcome to my dream.

I do not know if I can succeed; all I know to do is to persevere and work my hardest. I hope, however, that you will all stick around and find out with me.

Thank you for reading.