Dear Author

Dear Author.  Two words I've grown to hate.  The salutation of rejection.  I open my email and there they are and I know it means not only another rejection, but a form rejection, the impersonal device used by publishers and agents to clear the slush pile decks as efficiently as possible.  I understand.  And I hate it.  I am nobody.  I am "Author."

And yet ... At least I'm that.  I am "author."  The powers that be have called me an author.  But why?  Because I managed not only to write something and, presumably, finish it, but I have had the courage, or chutzpah, or stupidity, to submit it somewhere.  And for this, I am called "author."  I'll bet they say that to all the girls.  Well, they do.

How do they know I deserve that name?  Do they have another form letter somewhere for the even-less-deserving that says "Dear Bozo"?  "Dear Wannabe?"  "Dear WTF?"  No.  They are being polite.  They also thank me.  Seriously?  Are they truly grateful that yet another of thousands has sent them a manuscript they DON'T want?  No.  But they extend us this courtesy, and in doing so, in giving us this title, they bring us to our knees and our humility.  

Thou hast written.  Thou hast submitted.  We dub thee "author" and we thank thee.  Go and sin no more.

We who submit have grown to wear these words as badges of honor.  "How many rejection letters have you collected?"  We look to our heroes and count their rejections like so many notches on the sword, so many battle scars.  Rejection is our penance, our dues, our years in purgatory, the price we pay to earn enlightenment and a place at the table. 

I am "Author."  I come with my shaved head and my begging bowl.  Will you let me in?

Shall We Play A Game?

Okay, fans of contests, games and other online funnery!  Here's a competition for you.  I'm calling it, "You Can't Win If You're Not in the Game."  The goal?  Rack up 100 rejections by the end of the year.  Truly, I'm aiming for the end of the summer, but realistic goals are a good thing.  The rules?  All your submissions MUST be in "good faith."  That is, they have to be well-researched with a chance of a reasonable fit.  For example, a realistic, literary fiction story submitted to a science fiction magazine doesn't count. A zombie gore-fest submitted to a literary fiction magazine doesn't count.  That part's going to be on the honor system, since I'm not about to spend my precious rejection-gathering time researching everybody else's submissions.  Your submissions don't have to be all the same pieces.  In the event that nobody reaches the goal of 100 rejections, the person with the most good-faith rejections wins.   Just to give everybody a head start, any rejections you've accumulated since January 1, 2012, can count towards your total.  That puts me at 10.  I guess I've got my  work cut out for me!  Lucky for me, I'm a teacher on summer vacation.

Why am I doing this?  I've been resolutely committing myself to submitting my short stories and other work and building up my rejection callouses.  It's not fun.  So I want to make it fun.  The more I submit, the better chance I get an acceptance.  The corollary?  The more rejections I get, the closer I am to that acceptance.  Mind you, every submission I make involves a certain amount of homework:  What kind of magazine, agent or publisher is a good fit for this particular piece?  How can I craft my cover/query letter to interest this magazine, agent or publisher?  Are there any new revisions that can make this piece even better?  What format or other rules does this magazine, editor or publisher have?

Putting all this effort in, on top of the effort to get a piece to what I honestly believe is submission-ready quality, takes a lot out of me.  Then I start second guessing myself and trying to read between the lines of silence.  Is a short turn-around time a bad sign or a good sign?  If it's been out there too long, does that mean it's gotten lost, is being considered, or what?  Did this one-sentence rejection reflect a complete disinterest in my piece or simply an efficient editor?  So, I'm changing the rules of the game to keep myself entertained and keep my chin up.

Whose with me???

What Should You Celebrate?

I recently encountered another one of those necessary demons of the writing life - the rejection letter. Mind you, it's not the first one and I doubt it will be the last. With each one, my skin gets a little tougher, but they still take the wind out of my sails. As I bemoaned this fact, a wise woman from my online critique group reminded me I still had something to celebrate. "You've actually finished something and sent it out. Some of us are still mired in the mess of our first-ever first draft." And I remembered a time, not so very long ago, when I "wanted" to write. I actually wrote even then - I wrote and wrote, but I never finished anything. I had sketches and scenes and half-formed notions, images and descriptions and little splurts of characters. My friend's words reminded I had much to celebrate. I had finished a novel - my second novel. And I had had the courage to send it out. In fact, I've been able to finish and send out quite a lot of work over the past few years. And my friend had reminded me that this fact was worth celebrating.

So what should you celebrate? Even rejections are worth celebrating because you had the courage to send something out and the world didn't end when they said no. Celebrate the personal rejection letter, because it's not a form letter. Celebrate the form letter because you ventured forth. Celebrate your decision to share your work with someone else. Celebrate your first paragraph or page or chapter, because you found the time to write. Celebrate putting pencil to paper or fingers to the keyboard. Celebrate the next word you write because you had the courage to do it.