On Rejection as a Banal Part of Life

File Under Writing

Writers know: rejection is not something we seek out, but it is a significant part of the game. A post today on Facebook reminded me that four years ago I wrote about a very short work being accepted, but that it was an exception to the general rule that submissions end in rejection. Some years I publish more work, some years less. Largely, that's a function of how much I am writing, and how much I am submitting. But rejection is ever present; it's the norm, really.

So far in this calendar year, I've seen over a dozen of my own works publish, in a variety of forms and styles, from experimental poems to flash fiction, to interviews to vizpo, formal poetry, free verse, and poems with various constraints. Some were successes almost immediately; others took years to win acceptance by editors. But all of those highlights have come amid over forty rejections this year alone. And with several dozen submissions currently under consideration and (hopefully) being reviewed, I should expect most of those to be fruitless as well.

As with most social media, posts we see in our feeds and timelines are filtered to remove much of the heartbreak, setbacks, and certainly the banality of everyday life. I think I help myself by remembering that this likely is the case for my own experience of various social media platforms. Social media isn't real life.

There is no reason to confuse this reminder with humility on my part; by quantitative measures, I have been much more successful this year--in submitting, in securing publishing acceptances, and in yield. Certainly, I am happy for that. And, as I have written before, I have become more inured over time and less affected by the large majority of these disappointments. But still, I should be honest to disclose those rejections still come. This year, it's been more than once a week. I expect that will continue.

Keep going, I tell myself as much as I am telling you, if you have read this far. Keep writing. Or keep doing whatever it is you have to do, despite the setbacks that are all just part of the game.