Monday, January 07, 2008

Reading My Own Words

Mondays are tough anyways. First, I have to get out of bed without being overwhelmed by my week's list of to-dos. Then I have to get on the scale and try not to moan when I realize the five snacks I ate last night instead of a real dinner do count as calories. But this morning, I asked my husband to bring my laptop to me in bed...better than breakfast...or so I thought.

TWO rejections. From the same editor. I read through the emails twice in case I missed an important word instead of seeing only the 'although' that always starts the second paragraph...after the usual 'thank you.' One book wasn't going to be published. Okay - I could deal with that. My other story made the top 150 but when they cut the remaining 49...they tossed mine.

My husband tried to be supportive. "So maybe you were in the top 150 stories out of 4,322 that were submitted." Maybe. But the editors don't tell you that. Would it have helped anyways?

I thought about the other twenty or so stories I have out there in cyberspace waiting to get the ax - certain today wouldn't end without yet another rejection.

Then I forced myself to reread my words from a few weeks ago. If I'm not getting rejections then I'm not writing and doing what I should be doing. Submitting.

Hmmmm. Maybe I can send my reject stories somewhere else. After all, the top 150 might mean something to another editor.

1 comment:

Ann said...

Hi Terri-
I'm right there with you in the world of rejection! You are certainly not alone.

Try not to let it get you down. Your determination to write and submit is inspiring.