On Rejection

I am pretty good at rejection. That's the take-away from my romantic life at least: if at first you waste most of your life in love with the wrong men, keep looking for the right one -- he may be out there after all. In my case, he was (hallelujah, and against all odds).

So, too, I hope, for the writing. I keep writing it, and slowly slowly slowly it finds homes.

Or nearly does.

By last count:

One Master's degree eventually completed, with professorial mentoring raised to the "meet my agent" level -- which was exciting at the time. One story published, and honored with a prize. One essay published, and honored by a call-out in a magazine review. Another story bought by an actual paying magazine ... (let's ignore the fact that this mag seems to have ceased operation in the time between purchase and payment). One TV spec co-written, and championed by professionals in the biz, some of whom are complete strangers ... woo-hoo!

But getting there is mostly a story of learning to open the SASEs without the trepidation of a high school senior ("Is it thin or thick? Thin or thick?") Generally, I can read the form letter rejection and forget it rather quickly. Every once in awhile, though, I get one that's just plain rude.

Today, for instance, I received a rejection from a magazine that I had submitted a story to ONLY BECAUSE, when they LAST rejected me, they encouraged me to try again! Literally wrote, "please try us again" at the bottom of the form letter. So I tried them again, and got a rejection today at the bottom of which some jerk had added "I don't know who encouraged you to try us again, we never publish work like yours." Which is funny, because that was exactly the OPPOSITE of what their last note had said, and it's not like my writing changes so dramatically from story to story ... whatever. Suffice it to say, I was a little peeved.

(Almost as peeved as, when working as a lit scout, I brought a manuscript to the agent I was working for which she described as typifying "lazy writing" -- a phrase she actually then INSISTED I relay back to the writer. Who, by the way, had written A NOVEL. Which, no matter how bad, is not LAZY. I know. I write not particularly special novels myself, and it's still fucking hard work.)

But back to my own rejections:

Maybe an hour after I got that rude "no" this afternoon, I got an email from another magazine. A better magazine. A magazine I have actually read and rooted for since it started publishing. A magazine you can actually buy in bookstores. This magazine didn't want the story I'd sent, either. But the editor wrote this:

Dear Sarah,

My apologies. Your submission was misplaced in our system--the second time this story went astray on our end. As with your last story, I admired the quality of the writing, and though I don't think A Public Space is the right magazine for this story, I'd be interested in reading more of your work. You mentioned a new story on your blog that was the best thing you'd ever written--“Nothing Will Prepare You." If it's still available, perhaps you'd consider sending it here?

Umm, what? She read my blog? She did? Really? Cool. Wow. Talk about the best rejection ever (yes, it actually rivals the "no" I got from The New Yorker a thousand years ago, across which some intern had written "I really liked this -- sorry to say no").

All this to say, not all rejections make you want to jump off the Hollywood Sign.

They Can Let Me Down Easy Any Time

At the bottom of the form "no thanks" from Esquire, this lovely note:

Dear Sarah Kate Levy,

What a wildly entertaining read "Dirty Darlene" is! I hope you continue to submit to us. I'm sorry I can't place this piece.

-- MRM

Wish I knew who MRM was ... I'd send flowers. Really. I can hardly imagine a nicer thing to hear about "Darlene" short of someone wanting it. Made my whole weekend.

Faith?

Hmm. I'm the girl who went around my synagogue hanging "Is there a god?" signs on all the sliding walls. But that said, this is still a vaguely encouraging story.

Something To Read Again When Losing All Hope

The Guardian interviews first time novelists.

Borders is NOT the End of the World

I am making progress. Last night I went to Borders and there smack on the NEW ARRIVALS table by the front door was a novel by a woman I had been friendly with at Columbia. I did not panic, though I did get a little weird-ish. No, instead of fleeing in tears, I lifted the book, read the jacket, the bio, the acknowledgments -- and then I acknowledged this: she is funny, but her subjects are not quite mine. She writes with humor, but not really with depth. I have never really "gotten" her work, or at least, I didn't at Columbia. And I take comfort in that fact -- that her niche is not mine, so she's not "doing better than me." She works hard and she's talented and she deserves it. And I do, too, dammit, and I need to stop thinking about everyone else's career and focus on mine.

That said, I am doing pretty well with the self-focus. I have carved out 4+ hours of daily work just mine all mine, and after a pani-attack last week I went back to the "start" this week: I read Syd Field, for nice concrete you-can-do-it-ism, and I finally nailed the bulletin boards on my wall, and then I started carding the whole damn thing, SLOWLY, with his advice that the first pass of cards takes about a week, and then you sit with those cards, playing around a little, for SEVERAL WEEKS MORE. So, I have carded ORIENTATION, FALL and WINTER. SPRING is today, and REUNION tomorrow ...

Most importantly, I finally did the thing that for the last several years at least I have been horribly avoiding: reading my old journals. I found so much of use there! Shocking I didn't do it before -- but somewhere I had read "write first, research later" which really I think is a lot of bull. Start carding and researching at the same time is a better way to go. So I have gone that way and I am feeling finally in control of this fucking thing. Only took six years, but there you go.

And speaking of which, in journals from '93 I found notes for a story I finally drafted up last summer, ten years later! It's one of two short stories I'm working on, and having just joined a second Group, I have places to work them both, finally.

My plate is full, and at least for now I'm liking what I eat.

Also, thanks to Syd Field: Blogging is clearly for me a form of resistance. "It's no big thing. Don't put yourself down, feel guilty, or punish yourself. Just acknowledge the resistance--then you move right through to the other side. Just don't pretend it's not happening. It is! Once you deal with your resistance, you are ready to start writing."

So of I go.

The best thing that ever happened while procrastinating:

A few weeks back I was surfing the net in definite NOT SURFING time, but there I was, doing it anyway. I googled my almost-husband, and I googled my friends, and then I googled me.

And I discovered my story, "Soap Gets In Your Eyes", published in The Paumanok Review, was a Notable Online Short Story of 2003!

There are lots of things linked in the previous sentence. Go check them out while I return to the new draft of my Chapter 2.