Rejection Notices

It's not getting the notice in the mail, the manila envelope waiting for me in the box, addressed to me in my own handwriting--a sure sign the story has not found it's future home in publication--that creates the tension in my day. By the time I get it back, I have been expecting to see it for days, and honestly hoping for its return so the trial period of wait can be over, my wait is over; it's returned from its journey away from me and I am happy to have it back in my hands. You see, it's worse to be kept waiting than to find out it's been rejected. The tension comes at the next stage, when once again I have to battle the fields of literary journals, and find some new place to send it off to, starting the whole damn process all over again. That is the most difficult part (after actually getting the story done). I get uptight at the task. "Where to next?" Ugh, the cycle. You must continue, you must spin it out to the strangers once again. I am particular, too. After all, I only want it to be placed in a magazine I myself am fond of reading. So, the usual cycle, I start with my favorites. I have gotten positive response before (even so far that the Fiction Editor for Swink actually contacted me for an electronic version, but then rejected it) and then the list goes down. I have no real publishing experience, have won a couple of awards (a couple of years ago, including third place in the annual Seventeen magazine fiction contest) and was published in all the on campus journals and magazines at BSU, but past is past and that is quite a way into the past. Now, I am in the beginning stages of what I hope to be my "Fiction Writing Career" with no actual credits for my work.

So here I am, nervous about sending it out to the "right" place; for the most often received comment when a story doesn't "fit" somewhere, is that the story wasn't "right" for "them"--which always leaves me feeling confused, since these are magazines I read and enjoy and look for some kind of honesty and realization in the stories that I hope to convey in my own. So, in some unknown way I am not "right" for their journal--which then brings in to question my ability to fit in to the pages of any of the journals I like. What are they looking for then? And how can I tell if it's a book I belong in?

Keep researching, keep reading, keep sending it all on out.