Rejection.
“The nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.”
I wrote a piece of flash fiction several years ago. It got under my skin, and it hasn't worked its way to the surface. Enough time has passed where I don't know if its good or bad. But I do know two things:
- It's important to me.
- Nobody wants it.
That hasn't stopped me from submitting it periodically. It was first rejected by Glimmer Train for its emerging writers contest. Then rejected by Glimmer Train a second time for its micro fiction contest. Wish I had those fifty bucks back.
It was then rejected a third time by a literary journal I can no longer remember. And a fourth time, today, by another. I'm waiting to hear back from a fifth publication.*
I write this to you, dear reader, with no malice, no bitterness, and no self-pity. This kind of rejection fuels me. I'm not who I was when I wrote that story four(?) years ago. I was punching above my weight like I had something to prove.
I'm literary -- jab-cross, jab-hook -- I have vocabulary and a world view -- jab-cross, duck, cut -- I don't have an MFA but I can say a lot with every little -- hook, hook, duck, jab-cross.
That writer was brave, but he was misguided. He had no technique. Maybe I'm still misguided. I don't know. I'm still not published. But I've learned from every glove Rejection has landed on me. One day, I'm going to drop his sorry ass to the mat.
* I promised myself if the story didn't get picked up on the fifth try, I'd publish it here. And I'm keeping that promise.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”