I’m often reminded that trying to create a career as a fiction writer is really about focusing on the “long game.” I’m always thinking a couple of steps ahead, trying to see where new opportunities might be, and trying not to get discouraged by the inevitable disappointment of rejection.
The ongoing work of a writer is not simply putting words on a page or screen, and coming up with ideas. It’s also perpetually punctuated by submitting stories, self-promotion, industry research, reading (whether for knowledge, inspiration, or pleasure; often “all of the above”). Getting stories out into the world is part of all of this, of course, and brings with it its own sort of challenges.
The last few weeks were very much a reminder of that. I’ve got a couple of short stories I’m working on for open submissions which look like fun books. I’ve also got a project for an RPG publisher to finish up in the next few days.
During all of this, I got the unfortunate news that two stories I had really high hopes for were not accepted for the anthologies I’d submitted them to. In all honesty, I wasn’t all that surprised. The anthologies were high-profile books, with a lot of relatively “big-name” authors already invited to write for them. I wrote a story for each as part of the blind submission period and hoped for the best. I think my stories were solid, but they were apparently just not what the editors were looking for.
I have to admit I was pretty disappointed. I wasn’t upset or angry or anything, but I was disappointed. I think it’s really important for creatives of any type to remember that all art is subjective. Just because the editors of those anthologies didn’t want my stories, it doesn’t necessarily mean the stories are bad, or the editors are jerks (in fact, one of the editors told me they really liked my story, it just wasn’t 100% what they needed for that book, and encouraged me to submit to their future anthologies). It just means that that specific piece didn’t work for that specific viewer.
And then right while I was stewing in disappointment, Monsters, Movies & Mayhem (which includes my story “Vinegar Syndrome”) won the Colorado Book Award in the Anthology category. So that’s kind of cool, and was a much-needed moment of encouragement.
And that helped to ground me again, and remind me of the long game. Reminded me that I’ve got to take the bad with the good, and not let either get too deep my head. Not everyone’s going to like everything I write. Some people might really like something I write. All I can do is keep writing the best stories I can, keep sending them out into the world of submissions, keep trying to engage with the community, and hope for the best.
(Oh, and as a post-script, don’t forget to subscribe to my bi-monthly newsletter. Issue 3 goes out next week, and one lucky subscriber is going to win a vintage paperback copy of Stephen King’s Bachman Books. See last month’s blog entry for more details.)