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.