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.