Last night I checked my email late, just because. There, waiting, was rejection number 3,435 from a certain online journal. Hyperbole, of course. But it feels that way and every time they tell me no, I spend a few moments sulking. This time, since it was late, I headed to bed gripped by this ugly mood, only to find my daughter awake in her room and looking terribly sad. She’d had a bad dream or wasn’t feeling well – her articulation of the problem was poor – but I picked her up and carried her to my bed and let her sleep on my shoulder.
Then I thought of this. An essay at Big Other where Amber Sparks admits to feeling undo anxiety because she’s constantly reading on Facebook (and elsewhere) about other writer’s publications/readings/general success. She feels behind; she feels pressured to keep up and write more and be noticed more and achieve more. And I’m lying there with my daughter on my shoulder and I’m feeling sorry for myself for this latest rejection, except now I’m wondering why. The story is good. Many of the pieces I’ve sent to this particular journal have been good. And, frankly, despite their prestige, I really only enjoy half of what they publish and tend to find the other half perfect presentations of the emperor’s new clothes. Why do I keep submitting to a journal with an aesthetic that I think tends towards the incomprehensible for incomprehensibility’s sake, that holds up a certain kind of obfuscation as something grand when it is, in my opinion, mostly something meaningless.
This isn’t an attack on certain styles of writing; aesthetics vary and I know I don't have the most experimental of tastes. But, seriously, why the hell am I submitting to (and getting disappointed by) a journal that is clearly operating at an angle different from my own?
The answer is: it’d be really cool to appear there. I mean, it seems like everyone else gets published there. Shouldn’t I want to be published there? Isn’t it imperative for me to keep up with the writing joneses? See me, see me, I’m a talented and prolific writer!
This is silly. This is unhealthy. We’re not a factory; we’re not measured on output. And the quality of our work doesn’t change based on where it appears. A good story is a good story is a good story. The goal, I think, should be to write those good stories and let the rest work itself out. If it takes a long time to craft that story, then it takes a long time. If it takes fifty rejections to find a home for that story, then it takes fifty rejections.
At least these are the thoughts that came to me last night. With my daughter on my shoulder. The purpose of things and such. The point of it all.
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Alan, I completely agree with you. I am fully negaged in this novel I'm writing and have limited time to work on it, let alone to devote to submitting and query letters and all of the administrative stuff that goes into writing, and every time I read about all of the pubs other writers that I respect and unconsciously compare myself to are getting it makes me more and more paranoid about my own prospects in this industry.
ReplyDeleteBut then I just double down on what I'm working on, knowing that you truly can only put your best foot forward and everything that follows is luck for the most part.
For what it's worth you're the bomb.com and your stories never fail to inspire me. I thoroughly enjoyed "The Abomination". Jason's got something cool going on over at decomP.
BTW, how's it going with your own novel. I can't wait to pick it up at Barnes and Noble. ;-)
Rejections I get over very quickly. The anxiety, of course, is a more persistent thing. But I'm moving beyond that. I've got a couple of projects going and am trying to worry only about making those as best as I can make them and not worry about how often my writing is appearing. Amber's post seems to have struck quite the chord with a lot of writers. Getting published is certainly a lovely experience, but it's not the only goal. And comparing ourselves to the success of others is just not helpful.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts here. It's difficult to not compare your success to that of others. Sometimes it's nice to think that no matter how successful someone is, there's always someone more successful.
ReplyDeleteThe Emperor's New Clothes, indeed. This post moved me deeply, as did Amber's. I've been right there, Alan, both the hamster on the wheel and the parent holding onto my daughter and grasping at what's real, what matters.
ReplyDeleteI admire and respect your work and the more I get to 'know' you the more I admire and respect you the man. After a ten year slog, 'at last' I've a long and growing list of pubs, a book out and more coming, and still the anxiety persists and I still sometimes have lapses where I forget what's important and I'm too invested in the publishing versus the writing and the work. Thankfully, such lapses are fewer and fewer and I've much more integrity now.
I figured so much out by listening to my gut, by holding my daughters, by feeling their hearts beat against me, by standing before the ocean, a speck. I don't want to be a 'prolific' writer I want to be a writer and a woman with heart and soul and a voice that matters.
Congratulations, Alan. You're in a very good place.
Thanks for the kind words, Ethel. When it all clicks, it seems so much more simple. I mean, writing is never simple, but it helps to try to remember the point behind all this.
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