Climbing Back Into the Ring

Time for a long overdue check-in here on Writer's Wavelength. I've been posting a lot more on my other blog, PAMPLEMOUSSE, where I've been stretching the old poetic muscles a bit and really enjoying it. Honestly, I think I got tired of writing about writing, and wanted to expend my energy widening the horizons of my audience.

It's NanoWriMo and I am once again stubbornly refusing to take part. However, I have embraced the challenge in the form of climbing back on the miserable, nausea-inducing ride of the submissions game. So, I have bravely dug in my heels and resubmitted all the short stories in my arsenal that have not yet found homes. Forgive me if I take a moment of self-congratulatory indulgence.

I don't know why it took me so long to recover from this past round of rejections. It was a rough summer for a variety of non-writing related reasons. Perhaps I just didn't want to add any more misery to the pot. Or maybe you can only take so many punches before you need to retreat to your corner of the ring, get a few swigs of water, mop your brow, stitch up the wounds, and gather yourself for the next round. At any rate, gathered I seem to be, and off we go again.

I think the time spent on poetry on my other blog was quite healing. Removing the middle man of publishers, agents, and journal editors felt great. Just me and my work diving into the giant ocean of the internet, trailing a few bits of hashtag bait in the cyber waters to see who comes wandering by. There's something so freeing about taking the plunge and posting those poems. Done and move on. No constant revisions, no self-questioning - why wasn't it good enough? What can I tweak? Just the changes and polishing I chose based on the reactions of my own brain, my own heart, my own gut.

Maybe that was just what the doctor ordered.

The Worst That Could Happen

"What's the worst that could happen?"  That's the question I ask myself when that icy cold, gut churning fear grips me just before I send off a submission of my writing. "That's easy," you say.  "The worst that could happen is a rejection.  They say 'no.'"  Ha!  Shows how little you know of the dark and fearful recesses of the writer's soul.  What's the worst that could happen?  They could say "no" and ...

They could laugh at me behind my back AND

They could pass my story around their office from one editor to another, laughing more hysterically with each moment AND

They could send me a scathing letter demanding to know how I could possibly ever have deluded myself into thinking that I could write or might be worthy of publication AND

They could post my story and query on their blogs as an example of what not to do, accompanied by their brutal point by point decimation of my work, AND

They could tweet throughout the twitterverse about my appallingly embarrassing lack of talent AND

They could read excerpts of my work at conferences to demonstrate the level of depraved crap that gets submitted to them on a daily basis AND

They could publish my name and contact information online as a warning to fellow members of the publishing industry that the mere possibility of contact with my writing might taint them and all connected with them as horrifically bad writers AND

They might launch a global campaign to have my name blacklisted from publication for all time AND

They  might issue a ban on my work throughout the publishing industry as punishment for the effrontery of my presumption that my work deserved consideration.

In my dangerously creative brain, that is, in fact, the worst that could happen.  Welcome to the curse of imagination.  Thankfully, some sane part of my brain says, "Yes.  That's the worst that could happen.  And it probably won't.  They'll probably just say 'no.'"  And so I take a deep breath and I put that envelope in the mail or click "submit" or "send" on the computer screen.  Because, hey, what's the worst that could happen?  They might say "yes."