Skip to main content

Here we go again...

So the bad news is, I got rejected again. The good news is, it didn't seem too terrible this time.

I don't really know what to think about this, maybe I'm just getting used to it. 

When I was submitting poems to lit magazines, I got rejected all the time, a ton, two or three a day in the mail.  I'd get a little slip in an envelope that I had written myself, usually a nothing little sentence: "Thank you for your submission, but it does not meet our editorial needs at this time."  When I finally had a poem accepted, I was ecstatic, but also somehow disappointed, because they took the wrong one.  They took a poem that I wrote as a one-off idea, that I didn't care about too much.  It was great, excellent, perfect, but my first published work was a poem that I was only mildly proud of.  It was also liberating in a way because I could then stop writing and submitting poetry.  I had won.

The only short story I have ever submitted anywhere was accepted for publication in the Wayne Literary Review 2012.  They did take the right one in that case; I love that story.  (If you are interested it is called "Burn it Down" and you can read it here: http://issuu.com/wayneliteraryreview/docs/wlr2012/1?e=0)

I believe it is not a coincidence that the word for sending work to editors and agents is the same word for giving up.  I'm going to submit, one way or another.

So.  New plan.  I am going to throw out the somewhat dry and professional query letter that I have been submitting, and write something with a bit more color in it that I think better represents my style.  I am going to submit the new and improved query to a predetermined number of agents.  We will see what that brings. 

Here's the thing: somehow in all this researching and querying and madly writing on the new novel, and rejections and ups and downs and sidewayses, I have forgotten that this is about writing, something that I love to do just for the sake of the act, just for the unbelievable feeling of creation, of making something that wasn't there before.  I have written my entire life, long before I ever thought of this becoming a career.  This is about the words.  It is my firmly held belief that the audience will arrive, that whoever should read my stuff will.  Content first, then everything else will follow, whatever may come. 

I love writing.  Would I like to get paid for it?  Yeah.  Would I like to have my entire life in upheaval because of it?  No, I don't think so.  I'll be patient, and take it slowly.

On a side note, this blog has now had over five hundred views. 

Whoever you are, thanks for reading.

If you are interested in reaching out to me, and for some reason won't or can't comment here, try my email.

Or if you like uninformed and poorly thought out opinions about politics and punk rock, coupled with fart jokes, I'm also on Twitter @RDPullins.

Cheers, RP

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dance of the Sand Hill Crane

 It is Saturday morning in Feburary and here in Michigan it is clear and cold.  The sun has risen a while ago but there are still streaks of red in the sky, lighting up the clouds, high and wispy.  I am standing by my car after completing some chore, cleaning something or retrieving something and I am slow breathing, trying to calm my heart. It has been a difficult week. My son has a fight tonight, full contact MMA, his first, and I am full of conflict and anxiety about it. Not because I don't believe he will do well, because I know he is as prepared as anyone can be for such a thing, but because I am a father and I feel like I should be protecting him from the violence of the world. Even though he turns nineteen in a few weeks and is stronger both physically and mentally than I could ever hope to be, he is still my boy, and I am scared for him. My other son is fifteen and this week was embroiled in some stupid conflict at school, a misunderstanding that had led to meetings with th

One of the Best of Us

In the stifling heat my breath comes fast and heavy. What the fuck am I even doing here? What the fuck am I trying to accomplish? I'm sitting on the mat, maybe dying, a forty something dad playacting at being a fighter. This is my mid-life crisis, this is so, so stupid. This has to be the end for me, assuming I can get my heartbeat under control, assuming I don't just peg out here on the mat.  I can't do this anymore. "It's okay man, it's okay, you just need to breathe through it. You're fine, you're okay." The voice of my training partner, gentle and kind. My partner, the maniac that drove me to such a state, that I think I might die, he sits next to me and shows me how to breathe, how to calm my body. He teaches and guides me through it, and in a few minutes I actually am okay, the panic settles down, and maybe this isn't my last class after all. "You're alright?  Okay. Now lets get back to work."  And back to work we go. There

A Soap Bubble Nothing

I built a table, out of wood.  I made a thing that wasn't there before.  I cut and sanded the wood, I drilled in screws, and now we have a table where we didn't have one before. It is real and solid and you can touch it, you can feel where I cut poorly, see the rough edges where I didn't join the wood correctly, you can lift it, feel its weight.  It is a real thing that I made.  I made a table. This is not a table, this is a nothing, a series of random thoughts that I had in the shower, which is where thoughts come from. What if our souls are soap bubbles, what if we spread ourselves too thin, stretched out and flattened? What happens when it pops, would you even notice, would you even care? What if we are meant for something more? I am already behind schedule this year I've got work to do, I have things to accomplish, friends ask me questions ask for favors and all I say is yes yes yes and- What is this?  What am I hoping to do here writhing I meant to write "writ