Discouragement, Nice Rejections, and Persistence
Sometimes reading an old blog post accidentally can be really enlightening. I posted about “nice rejections and the MFA blues” a few years ago, back in 2007.
http://myblog.webbish6.com/2007/02/does-anyone-write-nicer-rejection-slips.html
What’s especially interesting is that the comments were so supportive, mostly from people I’d never met (though I would meet some along the course of life as a writer.) David Barber has since continued to write me very nice rejection slips over the years. I almost look forward to them now!
I also thought it was interesting that Kelli Agodon said she had never sent to the Atlantic, and that was February of 2007. By August of 2007, her poem “How Killer Blue Irises Spread” was published in The Atlantic. John Gallaher mentions his own post-graduate blues; this is right before his second book, The Little Book of Guesses, appeared, to pretty terrific acclaim.
I was also thinking that I didn’t remember being particularly discouraged as a writer after my MFA – but apparently I was, because there is the proof, captured in an old blog post. A cycle of discouragement appears throughout the years on this blog – sometimes I’m excited and busy, like I am right now, consumed with a new project. But sometimes I feel sending out poems and manuscripts is drudgery (not the writing part, but everything that goes with writing.) Sometimes I feel happy with my work, other times not so much, but what’s interesting is the work keeps happening, whether I’m happy with it or not. My writing and submitting habits – which you could follow if you could see my files on the computer – stay remarkably consistent, regardless of what I’m feeling, apparently. Which I think is actually a good thing. Keep sending out your poems and manuscripts. Try sending somewhere you might not believe you’ll get an acceptance from. You just never know.
Does anyone write nicer rejection slips than The Atlantic…
Since they’ve gotten a new poetry editor? Yesterday in the mail, on typed heavy paper, was the following note:
Dear Jeannine Hall Gailey,
Diverting poems, especially those that find you flexing your wit – after sifting through submissions upon an afternoon, I’m inclined to think that maybe we should all take a leaf from your little brother and read more poetry that doesn’t begin with I. Alas, our backlog is diabolical at the moment, and we’ll have to pass with regrets. Many thanks all the same for the chance to see more of your work.
Sincerely,
David Barber
Poetry Editor
It was very clear the editor had actually read and responded to the poems, (including a reference to a line in a poem “My Little Brother Learns Japanese” which goes “He reads poem/that do not begin with ‘I’”) which is a rarity these days in the cold literary mag market. Not only that, he responded in a timely manner, with mild encouragement but no promises – a perfect kind of rejection. I mean, if the Atlantic, who gets hundreds of thousands of submissions a year, can be so civil, in a note that got back to me in less than three months – why can’t other literary magazines do more than an inch of printed paper with a pre-printed “Thanks but no Thanks” after ten or eleven months? It makes me want to submit only to places as nice as these guys. Tell me your “best rejection slip” stories – share your stories of nicer-than-expected editors. Let’s praise those who make an effort to actually encourage us!
The Post-MFA Blues
I don’t want to discourage anyone in the middle of an MFA program, or those who are thinking about attending. But I will say that since graduation, I have experienced more of a letdown/depression/slow leaking out of hope than anything I’ve experienced since my total health breakdown of a few years ago. What I wonder is, Why? I didn’t go into an MFA program expecting really anything out of it, except for time to write (which I got – enough to finish one first book and get a good start on a second) and some feedback and encouragement (which I got, wonderful feedback from wonderful mentors.) I didn’t expect graduating with some extra letters to change my life, land me a dream job in publishing or academia, or some kind of mystical “now my writing life can begin” aura. But still, now that I’m out, and settling into the daily grind of freelance work for “the Man,” house-related chores, and writing without deadlines or feedback, I feel less inclined to write or submit, I double-think new poems or chuck them. I don’t want to send my new book manuscript out. I think I’m stuck in a negative-thinking pattern, and I don’t know how to get out. Any advice from others who’ve got through post-MFA blues?
In answer to the above, see The Atlantic’s article, So You Want to be a Writer?
And, go check out Mary Biddinger’s new book cover!
