failure

[newnumber6]

(warning, self-pity ahoy, you are under no obligation to read)

So,finally screwed up the courage to send out a short story to another magazine. And 16 hours later (before I even had the chance to post that I'd done so), rejection. I guess it's good (implications that it was so terrible that it didn't even need to be considered for a full day aside) that I got the rejection right away. It would let me send it somewhere else, if I had somewhere else to send it or the energy to do so... and it allowed me to cut out much of the mildly pleasant but ultimately corrosive vice of hope. Why, all in all I only had a few minutes while drifting off to bed to really consider it possibly being accepted.

But that doesn't make it any less of a blow, or any less likely to have sent me into a spiral of sad. :P. Possibly not the best timing to have chosen to do it before the con this weekend, now chances are I'll be depressed in advance of it and that'll make it less easy to have fun, not to mention that even if it's enjoyable I tend to feel depressed afterwards due to the whole 'lonely even in a roomful of geeks' factor.

Probably won't get much writing done this week. Need a little wallowing time. But I will continue, after all, what choice do I have? It's the last dream I have left that might give my life any kind of meaning or satisfaction, that I haven't already accepted was impossible for me. And without dreams, what's to live for, aside from minimizing the pain I cause to those I care about?

I think I will possibly indulge in a gyro after the con, if I don't decide to back out of the con entirely.

Okay, maybe two dreams I haven't given up as impossible... writing and eating gyros. Not much to live for, but it's something.

Comments

[foxfyre.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's part of the writing deal. Write, submit, get rejected, whine/cry/scream/break things, revise the story, and submit again.

The only real failure is in giving up.

I'm curious--do you have anyone else read and critique your stories before you send them out? I didn't start getting acceptances until I started getting opinions from other writers before submitting.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

In general, no. I know it's crazy and illogical, but ideally, I'd like to sell at least one my own merits without the fear that it was somebody else's input that made it. And there are other issues that make me prefer the more or less impersonal reaction of a submission editor at this point.

Although this specific one is the one that I had reviewed (in a somewhat revised form, of course) by SF author Karl Schroeder, as part of a Writer-in-Residence thing at our local library a couple years ago, which I made an exception for. He gave me a few ideas on what to focus on (some of which I took and some I didn't), but more he gave me confidence, which is perhaps why this one repeatedly getting rejected hurts a little more than other ones suffering the same fate.

But yeah, I will continue, eventually.