Skip to main content

Life on a Bus

Have you ever noticed that on the days when you desperately need a bit of good news—when you’re viscerally aching for it—these are the days literary magazines send their faceless rejection letters?  The universe is tilted against us.

I wrote a piece that looked perfect for The Literary Commute.  It was about commuting, and it was very literary.  Even made subtle reference to Whitman, taking his poem in a direction he wouldn’t want it to go.

Even though The Literary Commute is new, they sent me a rejection letter on a Monday, a day of direst need.  I would say I’ve lost count of how many journals have rejected my work, but that would be a lie.  I read enough to know that it is nearly every writer’s story.

I had a professor once who said, in paraphrase, “If you’re work is good enough for some people to like, it will be good enough for others to hate.”  It seems the haters outdistance the lovers by a considerable margin.




Probably they themselves have received many faceless pinhead letters, but I can’t image anyone wanting to send one.  Why not take a minute to write, “you’re almost there—keep it up,” or, even better, say why it doesn’t fit.  Anyone who reads occasionally misreads.

I talked to a friend who has a personal server.  We should start a literary magazine, I said.  I could be the editor.  Hey, I’ve had things turned down by the Rejection Collection, so I know how it feels to be an imbecilic writer in a world chock-full of such literary brilliance.

My favorite writers are those who aren’t writing about what they seem to be.  Herman Melville, for example, wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorn that Moby-Dick was a wicked book he’d written.  Everyone knows it’s not about a whale. Melville, of course, died poor and obscure.

Editors, it seems, take things to literally.  Especially for a free magazine.  My work will repel readers, apparently.  If you’re reading this you’re among the few brave enough to see what a struggling writer might have to say.


Trust me, however, when I say that not everything is what it seems.  There are deep waters that run beneath.  And whales are the least of our worries.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maybe Okay

  A couple pieces of encouraging news, perhaps, dear struggling writers.   I had a couple short stories accepted for publication in recent weeks.   As a fellow writer recently said, “You've got to keep trying.  Somebody will like what you wrote.” That’s a bit of sunshine.   And it’s likely true.   But the stories:   “The Crossing,” about two men in a boat trying to cross the Atlantic, was accepted by JayHenge Publishing.   JayHenge is a small, but paying publisher.   I was flattered when they wanted it for their Masque & Maelström: The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe anthology.   Being associated with Poe in any way feels good. The second story, “St. Spiders’ Day,” had been brewing in my mind for years—yes, this is a long game!   A friend pointed me to The Creepy podcast.   Since the story hadn’t been written, I followed their guidelines of what they wanted.   It worked. I recently heard a successful wri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Working Through It

  The thing about being a working writer is you don’t have time.   Between working nine-to-five and trying to eat and sleep, and write, of course, the week is shot.   Weekends are spent doing the errands that you can’t do during the week. I should probably have known better than to join a local writers’ group.   Their meetings, although only once a month, are all-day affairs on a Saturday.   I generally don’t have all day Saturday to spare.   I work all week and I need groceries and the occasional Target run.   And I haven’t yet learned to go a week without eating. This is actually the third writers’ group I’ve joined.   One was not too far from home, but not terribly helpful.   They met on Saturdays, but in the morning only.   Nobody seemed interested in what I was writing, so I stopped going. The second one was about an hour away.   They also met on Saturdays.   Their big thing was having lunch together after the meeting. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creative Righting

  Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world.   That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week.   That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press.   The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor.   She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher.   I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions.   I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor.   That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it?   You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify.   It’s got speculative elements to it.   ...
Post a Comment
Read more