Writers Need a Tough Skin
by Jan Bowman
If
you’re a writer new to the business, it might be useful to know that while you
will wish to be published and hope
some editor likes your work enough to publish it, the cold reality is that your artistic offerings will receive and survive rejection.
Even famous writers get rejections, although probably not as often as the rest
of us.
As a writer you must develop a tough skin to deal with the ‘not for us’ that cuts your ego a bit. Months can pass before you learn the fate of work that you sent out into the world bearing your best hopes. Unfortunately rejection letters often arrive in your own self-addressed envelope, as a mass-produced note on a coffee-stained scrap of cheap paper.
Take
heart. You must plan to be published. Eventually someone out there will get what you’re
trying to do. And they’ll have budget and space for your work. In this economy
even that can have an impact on your publication dreams.
As a writer I have collected more than a few rejection slips for work submitted to a wide range of literary journals, and not necessarily because the work wasn’t good enough. Happily, I’ve also gotten ‘We Love It’ letters. But for every acceptance, I’ve gotten at least twenty non-acceptances.
So
when you’re sending out work that you think is ready for publication, it helps
to remember that you need a plan, just as you do with most things. Read a range
of literary journals. Think about whether any of your work fits the genre,
style, setting, narrative style, length, or theme.
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| Photo Credit - Jan Bowman - 2012 |
Join the Maryland Writers' Association website: marylandwriters.org
Jan
Bowman's work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy,
Broadkill Review, Folio, The Potomac Review, Third Wednesday, Trajectory, and many other journals. A recent story was an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train's November 2012 Short Story Award for New Writers. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for
Fiction, and her work has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, two Best American Short Stories, and a PEN/O.
Henry Prize. She is working on two short story collections and seeking a
publisher for a third collection. Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com
Visit
or Join Maryland Writers' Association by going to their website. Pen in
Hand accepts submissions from MWA members for feature stories, essays
and fiction (300-400 words) and poetry (100 words) Query for guidelines
and editorial calendar - contact Paul Lagasse:
Some thoughts on the writing life. Keep Writing. Practice is part of the process. Revise as often as it takes and it is okay to revise a previously published work. We tend to see more every time we read and consider our work. Writers work hard, but it is a process and even if no one gets what you're doing for a long time -- don't give up. Just find ways to improve your work daily.
ReplyDeleteAlso - Beware the essay writing mills that want to sell you a quick fix for your writing problems. RUN AWAY! This will not help if you really want to improve as a writer.
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