Six Years of Rejection: What I Did When Editors Said No

Posted by Guest Writer in Inspiration      16 comments

Feb
23

Our pal Martin Barkley’s story “W’s Decorum” was published recently at Queen Mob’s Tea House. I knew Martin had been working on — submitting, polishing, submitting, polishing —  that story for many years, and it set me to wondering: after six years of rejection, had he ever felt like giving up on “W’s Decorum”? What kept him from doing so? How did it feel to finally have someone pick it up? i.e., was the pleasure worth the pain? He was kind enough to write about the experience for us below.

How about you folks? What keeps you submitting a piece of work that gets rejected again and again? How do you keep yourself from giving up? Is the pleasure of publication worth the pain of rejection? Let us know in the comments below or drop us a line. –DD

By Martin Barkley

“W’s Decorum” is a story written in the form of a legal deposition (4,962 words), a story that has a bunch of fine cuss words and erudite footnotes, and that disses George W. Bush for making being a dick acceptable.”

— From my cover letter to Queen Mob’s Tea House

I wrote this story that was rejected eight times over the course of six years. In between offering the story and receiving refusals, I was busy writing other things, so that factored into the lengthy timeline to publication, but I kept coming back to the story.

Because I keep a spreadsheet of my submissions (see below), I know how many times and where the piece got the kibosh. About half the editors responded quickly, perhaps too quickly (In one fucking day, Word Riot — really?) to have actually read the piece. Three of the submissions sat in a slush pile for two months or more, which is fairly standard, but it does drag out the process. As does the stingy “No Simultaneous Submission” policy, which I resentfully obeyed whenever required.

How Careful?

The rejections ran the gamut of editorial verbiage: “This piece doesn’t fit our needs”; “After careful consideration, we have decided not to publish your piece.” Notably, I heard the tantalizing but soulless “careful consideration” line in four of the eight rejections (AGNI, Eclectica, Word Riot and Rivet). Of course, editors don’t have time to explain what “careful consideration” means.

A refusal rarely comes with notes on how to improve a story, but I felt in my gut the piece was worth publishing. I double-checked, revised, and eventually expanded the story for consideration elsewhere.

[Tweet “”Of course, editors don’t have time to explain what ‘careful consideration’ means.””]

Spreadsheet

Details & Shifting Tones

The story’s setting is a legal environment, and I wanted it to be as authentic as possible, so part of the process involved checking facts and details. (Still, the misspelling of a legal term got by me.)

I also worked to achieve a tone that evolves from profane unsophistication to lyrical sadness. To find this shifting tone, I read the story aloud, again and again. (Unaided, I can quote long passages of the story; it is a method that requires little but teaches much.)

The original draft was 2,500 words, but the final form nearly doubled that count. This was worrisome, because many editors prefer stories under 5,000 words, but the particular form this story took justified — in my mind, anyway — the expanded length.

Commingled Clusterfucks

In 2014 I stopped tinkering with the text — as is, it was good enough; I had to quit; the perpetual reworking was driving me loopy — and instead spent whatever spare time I had searching databases to place the story.

(I H-A-T-E combing through vapid database entries the same way editors must resent reading endless sludge just to find one semi-precious jewel. I was released from the onerous task only when a friend recommended QMTH; otherwise, I’d probably still be searching Poets & Writers.)

Up to that point, I had repeatedly returned to the story 1) because I found satisfaction in working on a piece that was solely mine; and 2) because I saw the story as my personal record of recent historical events — namely, the commingled clusterfucks of military adventurism and economic collapse. In political terms, the story says something that needs saying — especially at this moment — and that drove me.

Some editors pointedly say they don’t want political content in fiction, but I believe it’s just wrong-headed to put that limitation on writers. So when QMTH accepted the story, it was more like a vindication than a feeling of relief. I thought, Finally somebody understands what I’m doing here!

During those six years, I knew the story was always there waiting for the next iteration, and I may actually miss the strange comfort I had in periodically working familiar ground, but I am elated the piece was published.

[Tweet “”Some editors don’t want political content in fiction, but it’s just wrong-headed.””]

Discussion

What keeps you submitting a piece of work that gets rejected again and again? How do you keep yourself from giving up? Is the pleasure of publication worth the pain of rejection? Let us know in the comments below or drop us a line.

Martin Barkley’s writing has appeared in The Threepeny Review, The Texas Observer, Arcadia, Queen Mob’s Tea House, and Work Literary Magazine, among others. His chapbook of short stories is forthcoming from Red Bird in 2016. He lives and works in Austin, Texas.