Maybe you’ve given this some thought as well, but just as there’s more to the world than we see, I suspect more is happening with our work, and to us, during the submission of our writing than we realize.
We liken the sending off of our stories and poems to journals and magazines to sending a child out into the scary world. It can feel that way. Now if you subscribe to any belief in intentionalization then we’ll agree this is a terrible attitude to take with our work. Not that imagining our writing as extensions of ourselves, like children, as offspring, is necessarily bad, but that internal attitude of kicking them out of the nest into an uncaring world where they fend for themselves and will probably get rejected is only an invitation to the Universe for – REJECTION.
In our cyclical realm of writing, revising, reading, and submission, the words hope and belief are not synonymous. Writers surely always hope their writing will be successful and accepted. But how many of us truly believe it? Believe writing success deep enough inside ourselves for it to be something beyond a rehearsed mantra? A natural acceptance that success is for the asking (only after, of course, lots of hard, hard, hard, hard work). Guess what? We also have to believe we can do the hard work required for successful writing.
Submitting our work gives us a break from a piece. We might be toiling over a piece up to the point of submission, perhaps right to a journal’s deadline. That work is on our mind and it’s difficult to step back with revisioning eyes when we’re so chronologically close. Most places will keep our work – taken or not – for some months. In my experience, about three or four months is the average wait for small batches of poetry. A little longer for short stories. So much is happening (should be) during that wait. New writing. Revisions to other writing. Other submissions should be coming back. And reading. Reading all the time.
By the time a submission returns, and if it’s rejected, you’ll have a fresh perspective from which to reconsider it. Ask the poem (I’m serious):
What did you learn out there mixed among all those other poems?
Who did you meet that changed your mind about what you had to say?
Are you saying something different now? Have you changed your mind?
Did what you see only reinforce what you are already saying?
Did something out there show you how to say more with a little less?
Did you learn more of your story while you were gone?
Were you mistaken about something?
Are you no longer a poem?
Do you need to hang back here with us a while and hibernate?
Are you ready to head back out there?
More thoughts on this to come…
We liken the sending off of our stories and poems to journals and magazines to sending a child out into the scary world. It can feel that way. Now if you subscribe to any belief in intentionalization then we’ll agree this is a terrible attitude to take with our work. Not that imagining our writing as extensions of ourselves, like children, as offspring, is necessarily bad, but that internal attitude of kicking them out of the nest into an uncaring world where they fend for themselves and will probably get rejected is only an invitation to the Universe for – REJECTION.
In our cyclical realm of writing, revising, reading, and submission, the words hope and belief are not synonymous. Writers surely always hope their writing will be successful and accepted. But how many of us truly believe it? Believe writing success deep enough inside ourselves for it to be something beyond a rehearsed mantra? A natural acceptance that success is for the asking (only after, of course, lots of hard, hard, hard, hard work). Guess what? We also have to believe we can do the hard work required for successful writing.
Submitting our work gives us a break from a piece. We might be toiling over a piece up to the point of submission, perhaps right to a journal’s deadline. That work is on our mind and it’s difficult to step back with revisioning eyes when we’re so chronologically close. Most places will keep our work – taken or not – for some months. In my experience, about three or four months is the average wait for small batches of poetry. A little longer for short stories. So much is happening (should be) during that wait. New writing. Revisions to other writing. Other submissions should be coming back. And reading. Reading all the time.
By the time a submission returns, and if it’s rejected, you’ll have a fresh perspective from which to reconsider it. Ask the poem (I’m serious):
What did you learn out there mixed among all those other poems?
Who did you meet that changed your mind about what you had to say?
Are you saying something different now? Have you changed your mind?
Did what you see only reinforce what you are already saying?
Did something out there show you how to say more with a little less?
Did you learn more of your story while you were gone?
Were you mistaken about something?
Are you no longer a poem?
Do you need to hang back here with us a while and hibernate?
Are you ready to head back out there?
More thoughts on this to come…