A Writer's Notebook, Day Eight-Hundred-And--Fifty-One

The hundredth rejection arrived, as expected.  I suppose it is better to not be sitting, waiting, though there is far more work that I have not heard back on yet.  It does feel significant, but I also am aware that it means nothing, in some sense.  I do not believe that most journals are biased in accepting work from writers who have been widely rejected, or that this sort of rejection accumulates in a literal way.  At the same time, if one is to say that the issue is purely about luck, as many do, I have to wonder about the odds,.  I feel it is quite abnormal to have this degree of difficulty breaking through.  I have looked into the averages for rejections and acceptances, but finding information on this specific aspect is not easy.  I know that many writers have severe difficult getting an agent, but that is a different issue than getting work accepted by journals.  I just want to have concrete evidence that I am progressing and not just accumulating an increasing, and ultimately endless, stream of rejections.

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