Alas

[lagilman]

I have been rejected.

No, I rephrase.

A project has been rejected.

actual conversation which followed:

me: "What did they mean by X? They meant it bored them, that's what they meant."
kradical: "Gilman, you're obsessing."
me: "I am not obsessing, I'm practicing rejectomancy. And usually I mock people who do that but hey, I just got the news. Give me ten minutes!"

*obsesses*

Right. On with the next market, then. Because, I've come to discover, the mark of a professional in this field isn't how many publications you've got, or even how much money you make off them. It's the knowledge that it's all about remaking and reinventing and rebuilding, every step of the way, whether you're building on success or non-success*. A project, once finished, is in the past; time to create the new one. A book, once read, goes back on the shelf, and the reader's looking for something new. A submission process, once started, takes on its own sort of life. So: Onward.

I'll stick pins in the editor-doll later.



*under the theory that no project can ever be a failure, even it it doesn't find a market, if you learned somehing from the writing of it.

Comments

[moschus.livejournal.com]

I so needed this post right now I can't even begin to tell you.

Thanks for sharing the wisdom. :)

[logrusboy.livejournal.com]

Rejectomancy! At last, a name for my superpower!! :)

Congratulations!

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

You know of course there is a secret number of rejections attached to your fate, and you've just gotten past one of those.

[lagilman]

I'd rather it had been a "wheee! wheee!" post, but if it helped, I'm glad.

[ilvack.livejournal.com]

You always have a way of shedding new light on the whole writing process. I really enjoy these post, even when they are about rejections. You do a wonderful job of keeping yourself positive when I get absolutly miserable when I'm told "not intersted" in nice, friendly letters.

[lagilman]

Oh, I'm a not-happy writer, certainly. And my best-beloveds are chortling at the depiction of me being 'positive' (positively pissy, maybe) in the face of rejection. I just can't see the use in dwelling on it past the alloted sulking-and-scowling period, when I should be using that energy to do the Next Thing.

(Or, in this case, working on the Thing Already Contracted, with delivery date looming larger in the rear view mirror. Ulp.)

I guess in a way that's being positive. I tend to think of it as professional pragmatism, myself. Plus, natch, a healthy dose of denial mixed with a pinch of Ego...