One Year, One Hundred Rejections

So, it’s really hot and I’ve been sort of testy (haha, testy) because of it. My knees are sweating. The front part of my knees. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I have been using the heat as an excuse for all of my procrastination and smartassery. But as it is, there is a scientific explanation for the heat, as it is July, and the sun, and the Earth, you know, axis, rotation, spinning, blah blah blah. I should stop being such a Whiney Wendy and drink a Diet Coke and shush.

Anyway, as some of you may know, and most of you probably don’t, I recently completed a project called “One Year, One Hundred Rejections.” It was the goal of the project to garner one hundred rejecton letters within the course of one calendar year. The work I sent out had to be, by my standards, both complete and “good” work, by which I mean that I wasn’t allowed to send out haiku I wrote in college, throwaway limericks about cows, etc.; I was sending out my best work to journals I actually wanted to be published by. The idea wasn’t mine, but T.J. Jarrett‘s, and we decided to do it together, partly because it would be easier with someone to keep you accountable for actually following through with it (I’m giving you a stern eye right now, T), and partly because it’s no fun to wallow alone in rejection.

Blake Butler has recently posted a lot of stuff on htmlgiant about rejection, and the “video game” that is the submission process, which I’ve enjoyed reading a lot. He has a lot of valuable things to say on the subject, and it’s nice to feel sometimes that rejection is a brutal force we must rise up against together to stare down, kind of like Minnesotans and winter. Except that for the most part, rejection is a necessary and (dare I say it?) good part of writing and the publishing process. Blake certainly has earned a top spot to punch in his initials in the video game of submitting. I don’t know if I wasn’t looking for it before, but I have noticed recently a lot of talk about the game of submitting in a lot of blogs and journals I read. Anyway, this was a project that I think deserves to be tried by anyone who is actively submitting.

On September 1 of last year, I began my quest for 100 rejections. Prior to that, I had been submitting stuff on and off to a few journals I read and knew, and had had some little success doing that. I had earned my fair share of rejections, and figured I had grown a thick enough skin to start playing the submission process like a big game.

I started submitting to every magazine I liked. I soon became a pro at rattling off suitable cover letters. If somebody on the street asked for a short bio in the third person, I could recite it from rote in under fifty words. The beginning parts were quite boring and tedious. Send out batches of what I considered to be my finished work to magazines, careful to read submission guidelines carefully. I tried to adhere to the dumb guidelines about simultaneous submissions, so I was constantly making lists and spreadsheets, and often referring to Duotrope to keep track of my pieces. Then came the waiting. After the first batch of rejections came in, I felt a little twinge of excitement and thought what the hell is wrong with me? I was excited about getting rejections!

At any rate, here is the system I employed:

I started out with the best journals, the journals that are the “top tier,” coveted spots to publish. Why shouldn’t I? I have just as much right to my yearly rejection from TNY as any other writer. After the pieces got rejected there, I would send those particular poems to journals I considered to be “second tier” journals and repeat the process until they either got picked up or rejected so often I would put them in the queue of poems I wanted to revise.

I never submat (that’s my made up word because I don’t like to say the word “submitted,” as my mouth feels clumsy doing so) to magazines I didn’t like or didn’t read, as being published by such places would feel like cheating to me. I did, though, find new magazines to like and read throughout the project, and I got to know editors and other writers throughout my journey. You know, the word “journey” really makes me wish somebody would make a video game about being a writer and the submission process, because I would totally play the shit out of that.

Occasionally I would get personal feedback, or a nice note attached to a rejection. Some of these even turned into later acceptances. One particular journal suggested that one of my poems might be better given some specific cuts and changes, and they were right. I made those changes, re-submat it, and they picked it up. I think there is something to be learned from that, though I’m sure you can figure it out yourself, so I don’t need to expound.

I cannot recommend this project enough. While I had a toe in the door of the lit mag world before I started this process, I really feel like I’ve discovered much more about it than I knew last August. I’ve grown as a writer, met some kickass writers, sprouted relationships with a few editors, developed a thicker skin, and learned to take rejection like a champ. For the calendar year, I’m sitting at somewhere around 130 rejections, and there are still six weeks left to get more! I played the game hard, as Blake would say, and while I don’t think there will ever be a Boss at the end that I can beat, I will continue to play hard, cheat codes be damned.

*A full list of the magazines that rejected me can be found on my blog: http://brettejenkins.blogspot.com