Yesterday, I met my twenty rejection goal. I have received twenty rejections on short story submissions since the beginning of the year. Though this should probably be a depressing statistic, there’s one very positive way to interpret twenty rejections.
Namely, I am still submitting.
For someone that never thought she’d ever take writing seriously, who dabbled and obsessed in secret, this is a fantastic accomplishment. Twenty people have read my short stories. Twenty total strangers have read MY stories. And even though all twenty have said it’s not what they’re looking for–all twenty have also said to send more. The brain weasels whisper that they’re just being polite, but the truth is that editors have no need to be polite. Politeness causes trouble in their line of work. Brutal truth and tact have much more to do with their business. So those brain weasels can go to hell! They may not have valued my stories over the thousands they receive to fill only dozens of slots, but they saw potential. They read my stories and thought, “Yeah, maybe someday a story from this writer will fill one of my slots.”
Damn straight one will. Because I’m going to keep submitting.
Twenty rejections, people!
Amy Henrie Gillett 