How I thought Rattle had finally recognized my brilliance
A rejection letter that was almost an acceptance letter, but not really
I feel the need to write something, even if that something might not meet the Pulitzer prize-winning standards I set for myself. I mean, even Pulitzer prize-winning authors have blah days, right?
I find myself in the Inbetween. Not the “between this world and the Upside Down” but somehow also… yes? My Upside Down isn’t occupied by Vecna or the Mind Flayer. It is instead a world where rejections never turn to acceptances. Where I sit down to write and only “meh” exits my brain. Where I want to do 25 projects at the same time and end up doing nothing instead, because… where to begin? (Dumb scrolling is where). Where I fall into a spiral of resentment and envy, instead of comparing myself only to myself, five years ago.
I know the theory. I really do. It’s just hard concentrating on staying positive and keeping up with a decent writing practice, when nothing seems to go your way. I know I bitched about August, but September was no walk in the park either. It wasn’t the dumpster fire the last month of summer was, but it could’ve done better. Shame on you September. Shame.on.you.
One of the things that happened last month that made me not love it was: I didn’t win Rattle’s $15,000 poetry prize. Shocking! I know.
BUT, hear me out: I submitted to the contest in July and thought I’d probably get my rejection in a month’s time, since according to their website, the winner(s) were supposed to be announced on September 15.
I saw fellow writers post their rejection notifications way before that and I still hadn’t received mine. So naturally (NATURALLY!) I hoped, against my better judgement, despite my so far experience participating in literary competitions and the fact every reasonable cell in my body was screaming NOT to hope–because it’s Rattle (!) and I…well I am me (follow me for more spiritual advice and life coaching).
Days rolled by at an excruciatingly slow pace. I kept telling myself “any day now, you’ll get your rejection letter any day now!” I almost wished for a rejection, just to absolve myself from the tyranny of waiting.
Instead I waited. September 10. September 11. September 12. I literally checked my Submittable account every hour, even early in the morning CEST, despite the fact I knew nobody in their right mind would send a rejection letter in the middle of the night. I mean they could. But I knew it was way more likely they didn’t. And still. I checked. And I checked again.
September 13. September 14. To say I was an emotional wreck barely able to contain the whirlwind of contradictory thoughts having a party in my brain would be the understatement of the century. “But what if you won?” “You will never win!” “Maybe you’re an honorable mention!” “Oh come on!” “You might not suck as much as you think”, “We’ve been through this Elisa, please! Self-awareness!”
And so the carousel of delusion and disillusionment kept going round and round and round and round.
Wanna know when I received my rejection letter?
At 7:59 a.m. CEST, September 15. By that time, I had already crossed over to the land of begrudging reason and knew in my bones that there was NO WAY I had won anything but a participation badge, and a pat on the back for taking the leap and submitting in the first place.
Sure enough, my rejection was simultaneously a winners announcement letter–two birds down. Stone pretty smug with itself. Well played Rattle, well played.
Now don’t get me wrong: the winners announcement/losers’ consolation/subscription confirmation/reminder letter, was very kind, and when I did my backwards time-calculating math, I realized it was probably sent around 11 p.m. on September 14 California time (so indeed in the middle of the night, ha!).
Still. If I didn’t stand a chance to begin with (and I probably didn’t) I wish I had been spared the agony of wondering whether I’d made the final round. I was frustrated, a little humiliated for hoping, and honestly was expecting a personalized rejection letter. Something to help my bruised soul return to its former state: very much unbruised and stupidly hopeful, relentlessly optimistic, open to all learning experiences: because that’s how we grow, right?
I know it’s unreasonable to expect the hard-working staff of an esteemed and very busy literary journal to send personalized rejection letters to thousands of writers. My logical brain knows this. My lizard-writing brain, not so much.
My lizard-writing brain was quite offended that the very kind rejection letter wasn’t addressed to me specifically, had nothing to say about my poems and was probably sent to hundreds, if not thousands of other writers (5,169 entries were submitted this year!!) biting their nails until they tasted flesh underneath, while staring at their laptop/cell phone/desktop screens.
If you had to wait until, quite literally, the last minute Rattle, then for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, at least say how much you appreciated my use of figurative language!
As you can imagine I was pretty done with September by that point, and was preparing an epic “goodbye and see you in a year” feast to mark the occasion. And then I woke up and it was September 16. And then September 17. And then September 18.
You can guess how the rest of the month went.
I am over my almost-acceptance-but-not-really now. I am. No, seriously. I 100% don’t care. Like, at all.
I joined a group for recovering bruised writers (also known as an amazing writers’ feedback group) and am venturing into the land of creative expression once more, armed with my stupid optimism and a healthy dose of imposter syndrome (I said recovering, not recovered) to keep me in check.
I will never stop writing, simply because I can’t. And if you managed to read so far, YOU earn a badge for keeping up with this newsletter as I try to figure out what I want it to be. Thank you for reading!
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The post after the post:
I want to state some things here, just to be explicit on the purpose of this post (how many times can you say “post” in a post?) and because I am an overthinker and will obsess over what people will think about it and my purpose for writing it.
I love Rattle and Timothy Green’s work more than I will ever be able to express. His post on changing the journal’s entire policy to allow writers to submit previously published work online made me feel understood, seen and encouraged as a creative writer. It is my biggest wish that other literary magazines will follow suit. From the bottom of my heart, thank you Rattle, and Timothy Green!
Rattle’s response times are actually great! I still have three poems I sent to the New Yorker (hahahaha, I know! I didn’t call myself stupidly optimistic for nothing) back at the beginning of May, still marked as “Received”.
Even though this post was written satirically and exaggerated some (practically no) aspects of my experience, the idea was to convey a feeling that, I think, is prevalent amongst writers submitting work. The self-doubt, the leap of faith to actually send something, the wait, the agony, the hope, the (oftentimes inevitable) disappointment. Rejection is part of a writer’s life, more so than acceptance. And despite the fact it is normal, it never stops sucking. It is what it is.
Even though I am in a pretty stale and dark place creatively at the moment, and I doubt the merit of everything I ever wrote (how can a grocery list be so uninspired? I mean “milk and yogurt”? Seriously Elisa?) I am also determined to keep going for one simple reason: Not heeding my creative call would make me my most miserable self. That is simply not happening.
I love you Rattle, I do! I can’t wait to read the winners when I receive my hard-copy per mail, soon.
Seriously though, don’t blacklist me. I was just messing around. I love you.
Elisa, I feel this with my whole body and soul. You are so so gifted and your words are a salve to all your readers. Keep going, friend and remember, writing is hard, but not writing is harder :)
Ugh, Elisa. I so get it. This is why I'm not submitting right now but I know that's not the solution for everyone. I don't even imagine that's a solution for me forever. But I'm trying to imagine a time when I can cope with that level of rejection better and am coming up short. It's just hard. Anyway, I am a FERVENT admirer of your work. Even if it's not getting picked up for mags, it has found a home in the people who have read it. You're speaking to us <3