Maybe you’ve noticed it too. You finish a story and you’re impressed. It came together better than you had imagined it would. You might’ve even surprised yourself with how nicely it fell into place. Excitedly, you send it to publisher after publisher. In their various polite ways of writing pinhead letters, you know you see something they can’t. You start rewriting. Changing things. Some carpentry here. Some cosmetic surgery there. Better now? Once again they yawn and say no. This just doesn’t interest or excite them. They’re looking for something you just haven’t got. Meanwhile, you’ve marred your original piece, the one that spoke to you in a way that made you certain you had something to share. After a while you turn to other things, leaving it in your drawer of unpublished gems. I read a biography of L. Ron Hubbard once—don’t worry, I’m not a Scientologist. Hubbard got his start as a science fiction writer. He’d keep a roll of but
Blog of a struggling writer.