A Short History of Rejection
Be careful what you wish for.
My latest rejection letter came last night.
I had been kind of out of the swing of things. There was a time when I would mail out a story to 20 different literary journals at a clip. A much loved grad school professor had come up with the figure of one in 30. For every 30 submissions you sent out, you would probably end up with only one acceptance. My odds were much worse.
I had over 70 rejections in the kitty before I got my first acceptance. And maybe only because I hadn't been the one actually doing the submitting. Brian had. But you know all that already.
After that first acceptance I wondered if I maybe I were on fire. I sent out a submission and was immediately rejected. I was apparently not on fire.
Several years passed. I wasn't writing much of anything. I finally managed to finish up a story I had been kibitzing with for almost four years. I passed along the story to someone who passed it along to someone who passed it along, and it ended up on someone's desk, and BAM! one day there was an and acceptance email from the Kenyon Review in my inbox.
In November, I finally finished up another story I had been sitting on for years. My productivity is really abominable. But I called the story done. I was curious to see if now I was on fire. I submitted the story to a couple more publications and received a couple more rejections.
I recently did another submission mailing to six more publications. I got a rejection back from one last week. At first, it made me feel pretty lousy, but then I got over it and adopted a newly invigorated "Bring it on!" attitude. Which was tested last night. When I got home, I asked Brian, "So, did I get any new rejection letters today?" He said, "Actually, I think you might have."
Here it is:
Thanks, Mid-American Review! Oh well. Two down, four more to go. Bring it on.