Back to work this week, both day-job and writing. As expected, it's been hard to get back into the groove, for both; I arrive at the end of each work day ready not to write, but to lay down on the couch and nap. Doesn't help that I got two story rejections, one after another, this week, both stories and markets I had high hopes for.
That knocked me sideways for a bit. I started to wonder if I should maybe switch to self-publishing, just give up on submitting to markets. Or maybe give up on publishing altogether; just write the things, share them with friends, and that's it.
But then I read this piece by Tobias S Buckell on the SFWA blog. It's from 2013 -- a blast from a better past? -- but it hit home for me yesterday. I urge you to read the whole thing, but this is the passage that struck my heart like a bell:
I’m thinking of this because I recently sold a short story that had been rejected 18 times before. It has been going out for 13 years, making the rounds steadily for all this time. It’s one of three stories that I haven’t trunked b/c I still like them. It still has a spark of something that keeps my belief in it alive.
None of my stories, even the ones I've been sending out for a few years, have near that number of rejections yet. And here I am wondering if they'll ever find a home! But my despair is linked directly to my belief; they still have that "spark of something" he mentions that makes me still like them.
So I'm going to keep sending them out. And as for the two new stories I started earlier this month: I've edited one of them, and finished the first draft of the second. They'll soon join the flock of stories winging their way onto editor's desks, looking for a home.
