So, I completed my 30 submissions in 30 days challenge and all I have to say is PHEW! What a challenge. It was like running a marathon after only ever having trotted down the block to your favorite coffee shop. Here are the results I've seen so far. And here is the takeaway: how to get rejected in 5 easy steps.
And that is why I have to convince myself every day that I can and I will get published, and to send my work out despite my mind’s best efforts to persuade me that it’s a waste of time and I’ll never succeed and who do I think I am anyway and isn’t it easier to just put my dreams on the back burner and get on the path more traveled?
Today (day 10) in addition to submitting to the CBC short fiction contest, I sent one of my novels, Rumors of Happiness, to literary agent Sandy Harding at Spencerhill Associates. I guess I should be thankful for my involuntary celibacy these days, because at least it’s freeing up my time for all these submissions.
So I received my first rejection yesterday. Upstreet Magazine declined my short story Sally’s Pigeons. And no, it’s not an avian resource guide. According to my plan, that’s one down, 199 to go—if I’m in the same league as Louis L’Amour, 139 if I’m side-by-side with Jack Canfield, or 21 years, 12 months, and 24 days if I compare myself to Gertrude Stein.
Day two of my 30 queries for the month of October game/challenge/torture device, and it’s going pretty well. Of course, day two of anything usually goes pretty well. Relationships, jobs, exercise, kidnappings. It’s day 29 that separates the winners from the people who want to poke their own eyes out with a stick.
Today was short story submission day...
Rejection is a pretty scary thing. Or even if it's not scary, it's damn frustrating. Every single time I send out a query letter to a publisher, literary agent, magazine or potential boyfriend (kidding. I don't send men query letters; I get my assistant to do that for me) that little bubble of hope and optimism and excitement rises to the surface and I think: "Maybe this time...."
And then I receive...
