Rejected! Again.
Gotta stay positive
I have submitted exactly 200 short stories to publications with a few other projects going to agents. Of those, 14 have been accepted for publication in magazines, journals, or online sites. I believe that is a 7% acceptance rate, which I’m told is pretty good.
I still don’t have an agent for my longer works.
While I’ve written most of my life, I started sending stories to magazines and journals just a few years ago.
My first acceptance came after only two months of submitting, and my literary fiction piece was published in the Dead Mule of Southern Literature. I was still deciding on a pen name at the time.
I thought, “This isn’t as bad as every says! Look how quickly I was published!”
How stupid.
From November 2018 to now, July 2022, as stated above, I have had only 14 out of 200 submissions accepted.
I submitted one story, “Community Club,” 18 times to 18 different magazines/journals. It was finally accepted in Blue Mountain Review, next to the last story, page 219.
My writing being rejected has never really bothered me. Reading that rejection is the norm, that it’s not personal, that a story isn’t bad just because it isn’t accepted has helped. I have had only one or two personal rejections, and the form rejections also help me understand that it’s a business where my story just may not fit. I don’t take it personally.
I read a rejection email (if I get one, that is) and move on. I don’t feel devastated.
In one Medium article, I likened submitting to job hunting. It feels very much the same.
Sometimes I’m a good fit and sometimes not. I may not understand why, and it may not be that my writing is bad but that someone else’s writing is better in the subjective world of writing.
Good luck!
