Today I received one of those dream rejections. Anyone who has been submitting for a while knows what I'm talking about. It appears that I passed two rungs toward acceptance of a short story, then hit the wall at the final approval stage. (Now I could be wrong, one thing we writers do is try to read a novel-worth of information into one short letter from anyone in Publishing.) This final editor rejected my story, saying many harsh things (it is my baby, after all) but also many helpful things, clearly explaining why she must reject the story, but saying that if I did "serious" edits, expanded the story, and resubmitted it to another of their lines, they might reconsider. Aaargh! 
   I can remember the day when that would have been music to my ears and I would have eagerly gotten to work. I never used to receive rejections this helpful! But I have now sold three pieces of fiction, and am readying submissions of three (!) more to editors who have already bought from me. I don't want to write on spec anymore. I want to get paid! 
   Is that so wrong of me? I have now received three or four rejections since I sold my first novel, so I know it's true that you get rejected just as much after you sell as before, but it's hard. How can a person who is working professionally in Publishing find the time to agonizingly edit and re-edit over and over? And yet, how can we risk not doing so? If we aren't sending out our best work it's going to get rejected, right? After all, most of what we already thought was our best work will be rejected anyway. Where do we draw the line? 
   One thing I know for certain is I can't risk a crisis-of-confidence in my writing now. I've got too much at stake with those final edits on my next three submissions! But somehow this one hurts more than the others.

 

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