“It was a knee jerk reaction, really.”
It’s the only excuse I can offer myself as I opened the doomed e-mail from the publisher this morning. Honestly, I never thought two polite sentences that weren’t related to my love life, could send crystals of ice down my spine and at the same time make my stomach boil with the intensity of an erupting volcano.
I finished my first science fiction short story without really going through it with a fine tooth comb and submitted it to a reputable magazine. It was almost as if writing that last word in the story gave me explicit permission to hang myself professionally. Two weeks after pushing ’send’, I had the fortunate experience of belonging to an established writer’s group, and it was only after learning from the constructive peer criticism, that I longed for a time machine to retract my story from the hands of powered professionals.
As I sat there formatting my freshman effort with glee and getting excited at all of the really clever parts that I had written, I realized that I still very much suck as a writer.
I should. This is my first complete piece in the highly competitive genre. Hell, my critical writing teacher in high school would have probably thrown it back in my face and exclaimed that it still needed to be finished.
In the past, I never understood the heartache of friends who have been rejected. While I’d offer my condolences or encouragement on their next submission, I struggled to understand why they would take it so hard in an industry that has a reputation for being extremely selective and picky. Hell, both George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss were rejected many times. The only reason their novels are sitting on book shelves now, is because they ripped apart whole stories to submit the shorter works and offers to publish finally came through. Some (read John Scalzi here) get lucky by their own admission, and publishers find them. But John will be the first to admit that being sought out and queried happens very rarely.
Now I finally know what it feels like to have someone say “no - we’re not interested”, after all the damn blood and sweat you poured into your work. All right, in my case it was just a little blood and sweat, a pinprick and a light walk, really. It was not nearly the amount that I’m sure others have sacrificed upon the altars of Saint Keyboard or the Typewriter Goddess.
This morning if you asked me if I were feeling low enough to give up, I would probably tell you that I was contemplating creative grammatical suicide. I can’t deny the little voice in the back of my head telling me that I don’t belong in the same leagues as Heinlein, Drake, Scalzi, Watts, or the countless others out there that I’ve read over the years.
Yet, as soon as I publish this very cathartic article on my site, I will probably trudge on, trying to hone my fledgling craft. So fear not! This weekend, I will be getting out my red pen and magnifying glass and asking some serious questions about my story integrity.
Once I’ve completed that task, I might password protect the entry for your perusal. If you run away screaming, I’ll know that I still have some work to do.
At least I’ll have the subtle satisfaction of hitting the ‘publish’ button in my wordpress client this morning, which makes everything a little better.
Not really.
