Some of the the most beautiful
words to find in the morning lurking in my inbox:
“Dear Tyrean Martinson,
Congratulations! We are happy to tell you that we have
decided to publish your story/poem . . .”
Some of the hardest words to find in the morning lurking in my inbox:
“Dear Tyrean,
Thank you for your submission.Unfortunately it has not been successful on this occasion and we will not be using it.”
The question is: do I let words
like these affect my writing, or my day?
Well . . . yes, I do. I can’t seem to help it. The best
words fill me with a sense of elation and excitement, happiness, giddiness, the
desire to shout from the rooftops, or at least from a facebook post. I carry
the words around with me all day, and rejoice over them, again and again.
The worst words are the ones I try to shrug off and say
don’t matter. Or I try to tell myself they don’t matter with things like . . .
“Oh, well, I didn’t really work on that story that long, or that much. I didn’t
really expect it to make it. So it’s all right. No big deal. Another day,
another story, I can submit something again soon.” But still, lurking in the
back of my mind is . . . “They didn’t like my writing. Does my writing suck? Is
my writing good enough? Should I have spent more time on that piece? How much
time is enough? If I can’t sell a short story, will I be able to sell my novel?
Thankfully I received these two letters in reverse order, with the rejection letter first - one week ago, and the acceptance letter second, yesterday. So, for the moment, I'm flying on elation and excitement, and these words keep looping in my head:
“Congratulations! We are happy to tell you that we have
decided to publish your story/poem . . .”
I love, love, love those words.
The moral of my story is: I wouldn’t receive those wonderful,
glorious, beautiful acceptance letter words if I didn’t keep submitting my work
time after time, month after month, determined to find a market for my poetry
and short stories.
I have to write, revise, and submit my work on the days that
I find success.
I have to write, revise, and submit my work on the days that
I find rejection.
I have to write, revise, and submit when my inbox is full of
chatty letters and advertisements and I’m still waiting to hear back from
publications.
Write, revise, submit. Repeat x
infinity.
News in Blogland
RAOK - Becca and Angela at The Bookshelf Muse are hosting Random Acts of Kindness this week. Check it out to celebrate kindness in the bloggy world. Two Kindness Gurus I want to highlight for just a moment today: Karen Lange at Karen Lange, and Alex J. Cavanaugh. These two bloggers have encouraged me and many others. (more about them and their rockin' kindness on Friday)
Flash Fiction
Blogfest - Cherie Reich is hosting her second annual Flash Fiction Blogfest on Monday!
Upcoming Posts :
Poetry and Thankfulness (Friday)Flash Fiction Blogfest (Monday)
Wise and Beautiful Editors Who Say NO? (Wednesday)
Memorial Day Post (Monday the 28th)
Wise and Beautiful Editors Who Say YES! (Wednesday the 30th)
100 Days of Revision
Day 16 Update
I've made changes, and keep making them, but I am very happy with my novel at the moment. I know it's not perfect, but I'm loving my characters right now, and revision is going slowly but well. Yesterday I think I only worked on four paragraphs, but I think I fixed some character issues . . .so it's good. Today maybe I'll get through 1,000 words or so . . .I hope.
