Rejection Feels Personal

Do y'all ever submit your work anywhere? Do you ever take that chance? I do. I love it. I've got a gambler's shiny pleather, pitty-pat, odds-loving, stakes-raising, rhinestone-sparkly, second-chance, 7-come-11, mama-needs-a-new-set-of-toner-cartridges heart, and submitting stories (and sometimes a novel) to magazines and contests is my personal Vegas.

Having been an actor for a decade or so in my wild youth, I also have a gambler's thick, tortoise-shell, snake-scaly, polyester, pin-striped, calloused, just-one-more-roll, can-you-loan-me-a-contest-entry-fee-until-next-Wednesday skin when it comes to rejection. I'm here to share some of that thick skin with you because I want your work to live in the world if that's what you want. And so: it must leave your house. I bet (as gamblers are prone to do), that you want to send your stuff out if you're not already, and I bet you want to have a bit thicker skin if you are submitting your work. Because if you are, the inevitable is happening; you are being rejected. Welcome to the club! Stacey Richter wrote a beautiful essay about the democracy of this club, "The Chair of Rejection," and the only fee to join is a high five for having the guts to send out your work in the first place. High five!

When I first started sending out my work, I quickly realized I'd need a place to store my rejection notices. This was back in the day when most submissions to literary magazines and contests were made using the traditional mail (that's right, the Pony Express) and acceptance and rejection notices came back the same way. I had a day job then (that's what gamblers call their actual job, to differentiate it from their real work of rolling the dice) and had taken some used folders home for a little project called Organization of My Life. Organization of My Life never quite got off the ground but one of those files, already labeled PERSONAL, was amended a bit and became my rejection notice archive. More than a decade after receiving my first rejection slip (and my first acceptance!), the file is still with me, still holding the notices that I now print out from email form, and still reminding me of what I amended the label to read: REJECTION feels PERSONAL. Because that's all it does. It feels personal, but it's not. A rejection notice is an invitation to take another look at the work and go again. When I get that invitation I always RSVP yes! I hope you do, too.

Despite my gambler's rubber-check heart, I have a very small budget for contests with reader or entry fees and I stick to it. The best advice I've received is much like what we share on NaNoWriMo's I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page about choosing contests carefully, especially when it comes to ones with fees. There are so many places looking for good work that don't charge a fee, that there's no need to mortgage your writing cubby to place the kinds of bets I'm talking about here.

Occasionally, I do put my money down when the prize is calling to me or the organization or cause it supports is deserving (such as "decreasing world suck," like the Vacuum Contests will certainly do). And sometimes, once a year or so, I take a wild chance. But money or no, I've always got something out there because that feeling, of having something out there, is what makes my gambling heart sing.

How about you? Do you have any submissions in the great out "there"? Are you wishing you did? What stands between you and pressing "send"? Do you have a contest entry budget? And what do you do with your rejection notices? Do they decorate your fridge? Line the wastepaper basket? Do you keep them in a scrapbook? If you share your next one with me, I'll send you a high five!

See you in Vegas!

– Tupelo