A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Eighty-Two

This year has not been a good one in so many ways, and that is a truth that most people seem to be in agreement about.  For me, one aspect that has been most frustrating has been my inability to get any of my work published.  It is not the fact, alone, of those rejections, but the strange combination of having this unmitigated negative response, while also being told that my work is good by people who should know.  I am also aware of the reality that I did not act when I was younger, and I recognize, at this point, why it was impossible for me at that time in my life.  Now that I am doing the work, though, I am not in the same situation, with the same kind of access and opportunity.  As the year winds down, I have sent out well over a hundred submissions, most to journals but, also, chapbook manuscripts.  About seventy have come back at this point, all rejections, so it may be silly, but I am still holding out a bit of hope that this streak will end before the year is out.

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