Still,
receiving nothing but rejections from editors is sort of a lousy feeling, and
to make things worse, I’ve almost entirely been receiving form rejections. For
a while there, I felt like I had reached a point where, even though I still got
rejected way more than I got accepted, I received mostly personal rejections,
and when the rejections were form, they were usually the higher tier form
rejections (the ones that state they thought your piece was good and they want
to read more from you).
Ever since
I had to start over with a whole new set of stories (because all of my other
stories had either been published in journals, published in my book, or both),
I feel like I’ve taken a huge step back in terms of rejections. Only one of my
stories—one!—has been published since my book came out. Okay, part of this is
because for about a year there, I was barely submitting. But for the past few
months I’ve been getting back to my regular submission habits, and now the form
rejections are starting to pile up.
Of course,
the first possible reason for this is that my new stories aren’t any good.
This, naturally, is where my mind first takes me every time I open a new email
and read the same old words: “Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately . .
.” I wonder, have I lost it? Did I use up all my stories, and I just need to
accept that I only really ever had a
little over a book’s worth of stories inside me? Or is it that the stories in my book—most
of them, anyway—were workshopped in grad school. Do I NEED the feedback of a
class-full of writers in order to revise my work to completion?
But then I
remind myself of the few personal rejections I have received on these very same
stories. I’m getting a flow of form rejections right now, but the slow and irregular
drip of rejections that were coming in before this included a fair amount of
personal rejections, so maybe it’s not time to throw in the towel just yet.
Damien
suggested that I consider the time of year it is before I read too much in to
these form rejections. Most journals close for submissions during the summer,
and this usually means there are some straggler submissions that the editors
really want to plow through and respond to in a timely fashion. It’s nice to
start the new submission period with an empty submission file, I’m sure. So the
sudden flood of form rejections might just mean they were quickly working
through their backlog and saying no a bit more readily than usual. No personal
response might mean they’re strapped for time, that they don’t want to waste
what little time they do have writing individual notes about every story they
thought was good but that didn’t make the final cut.
Looking at
it this way makes me feel a lot better. It might not actually be what’s going
on here. It might be that I’m getting form rejections because these stories
suck. It might also be I’m getting them because these stories aren’t as
polished as I thought. Maybe I’m getting them because I’m just sending to the
wrong places, places for which these stories aren’t a good fit. It’s even
possible I’m getting them because the editors just didn’t read my submissions
very closely. There’s no way to know. That’s the (often frustrating) nature of form
rejections: they tell you very little about your submission. But to look at it
in a positive way, it does mean that
these form rejections are not necessarily a sign that I’m a failure as a
writer. I’m going to keep plowing ahead and keep submitting, and even more
important, I’m going to keep working on some new stories that might help me garner
some more personal rejections, or better yet, an acceptance.
I think the time of year is exactly it. I've noticed a huge difference in responses when I've submitted in August versus March - and the subs were for the same story. I'm gearing up to do a major submission push in the fall for my thesis stories and other ones I've finished. I know you've got more stories in you! :) If you ever want feedback on one, I'd love to read your new stuff. :D
ReplyDeleteIt's reassuring to know I'm not the only one. I could always use feedback, Jenni. Let's exchange some stories soon.
DeleteThe more I learn about the submission process, the more it feels like a crap shoot. You're right about the timing, but also I don't always trust my work in the hands of twenty-year-old interns. Don't get me wrong I don't have anything against 20-yr-old undergrads (I was once one myself), but I really don't think they're qualified to make judgements about literature, and I feel the bigger journals rely too heavily on interns. So I guess it's a catch twenty-two because you have to some sort of cache or currency to get past the gatekeepers and get straight into the editors' hands, but in order to have that cache you need to publish in big name journals.
ReplyDeleteThat's so true. The same problem arises sometimes with the journals that use grad students as first readers. Although grad students are more qualified to judge literary merit than undergrads, they're often bitter or jealous or lazy or pretentious, and they don't always give every piece a fair shot. I feel really frustrated sometimes when I hear editors talk about how few "good" submissions there are in their slushpiles. I bet there's a shockingly high number of excellent stuff that gets rejected far too quickly by people who aren't giving it a fair chance. Still, there's no way around it, like you say. I guess we just have to try to publish enough good stuff in enough worthwhile places that editors will start to recognize our names and not toss out stuff aside so quickly.
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