Sunday, February 27, 2005

Link: The Fine Art of Getting Your Face Slapped and Asking For Another, Sir

An old--by old, I mean, from a long time ago--friend, who recently became aware of my web presence due to this happening and that happening and us, five to 15 years later, winding up on the same e-mail listserv, pointed me towards this, which I just read all of, even though it's long, so you know it's good, because I can't concentrate on anything longer than a handful of words by now, because, just because.

Slushkiller

So honestly I read the opening paragraph of the article and went to the website it referred to (a place for people to post rejection letters and then comment on them) and after clicking through a random sampling of the "Literary Agent" letters, I was thinking that, wow, a lot of these people are whiny, because if I'd get half the personal-reply material they've gotten in their responses, I'd be tap dancing up and down my hallway walls. I mean, heck, I get thrilled when I get called Mr. Dixon. So then I went back to the original blog post and read the rest of it and found it enlightening and amusing, and it also made me very scared about a piece of my web presence (which you can go to over here), so I ran to it quickly to read through my comments on the rejection letters I've received, and was pleased to remind myself that, no, I don't sound like an ungrateful bastard. I do, in fact, get a bit of a grin on my face every time I do get even the slightest bit of personality in any of my rejections.

Because really I still don't think of rejection as a bad thing. Okay, so I haven't been outright told I suck yet. Maybe I'll throw a hissy fit when that letter does come through. That's cool. But in the meanwhile, all these form letters, they make me happy, because every time I get one in the mail, it means that someone out there in the world confirmed for me the fact that at one point in time prior to the moment in time I opened my mailbox that day, I did actually send out a story or a query letter. I mean, sending out the letter is nice and all, and I've got a whole post about that in the works, but the rejection letter is a way of closing the loop, I guess. It's the exhalation after the inhalation. It's...oh, bugger, I'm tired, so.

I guess one might notice a certain element of defeatism in my attitude towards this. The jumping-jacks-in-the-sunshine response to being told I'm not going to get published. But I don't look at it like that. I look at it more like...look, I spent a lot of time writing stuff in the last few years, and not a lot of time sending out for publication, and that was pretty stupid of me. So being rejected is fine with me because, hey, you're not supposed to get accepted. (My old-from-long-ago friend noted that being "a touch jaded and cynical is an excellent counter-balance to rejection" which is true. Sure we live in a cynical age but that doesn't make all cynicism bad.) I like to think I'm a good writer--and I also like to think I follow all the rules publications lay out when I'm sending my stuff in and I also like to think that my cover letters are classy and business-y and they don't make me sound stark raving loco--but hey, I know I still need to fill a shoebox or two with rejection letters before I can start to think about maybe hanging up my laptop and taking up knitting. So maybe I'm not so much jaded and not so much defeatist as I am...oh...pleasantly amused with my own willingness to try.

Plus, anyways, when you assume you're going to get rejected, getting accepted--I theorize--becomes all the more thrilling.

Or so the story goes.

As I'm sure I'll find out someday.

Once these editors and agents recognize MY GENIUS!!!!!!!

(Cough.)

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