A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Six-Hundred-And-Six

I am sending out a whole battery of submissions right at the moment, and I know that the reality is these will almost entirely become rejections.  I have been through this process before, and I am not foolish enough to think that their is likely to be a significant change from the way things have been for me in the past.  There are times when I have gone a long while with no acceptances, even, at times, surpassing the hundred rejections that one is often told to seek out.  That is the reality of trying to get work into journals today.  That does not mean that I am alright with the rejection, or that it won't hurt me.  I have never been all that good at dealing with such things, and I take it personally even knowing that I should not.  I don't choose to respond this way, and I don't expect that I will change, even if I want to.  In part, I think it is connected to my neurology, but that is just speculation and might be an excuse.  Who can say about any such thing?  (even saying it is possible it is an excuse triggers a plethora of mixed emotions for me, some that are about the idea that I might have learned helplessness and others that push back with an idea that I have internalized bias and self-hate around my neuro-diversity, but all that is probably something to discuss another night)  I know that I am going to be dealing with these rejections.  It is a part of the process, and I know that, but that still doesn't help.  There isn't anything that could make it better, except for it to be different.  I know that this is the process, that it is this way.  I am just feeling a lot of dread about what I know is coming next.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I want...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it....
Read more