When Will I Be Read?

It has been said that behind every good book one can find a pile of rejection letters. If that's the case, I'm collecting my own pile.

Currently I have two separate poetry manuscripts circulating and more than a dozen individual poems, sent off as one might send a child off to school, for indeed those words are a part of me being shown off to the world to see if I've raised them properly, if they'll fit in with the other "kids", if they'll shine and prosper and maybe find their way onto a crisp, printed page in a respected journal somewhere.

And then those stamped, self-addressed envelopes arrive home announcing that my work was not good enough. Perhaps it's more painful for me because I have a post office box that I only visit weekly so there's always more than one letter awaiting me, for certainly they do not all arrive on the same day. I've become better at ripping them open and saying, "Your loss" when I read the form letters that try not to be form letters. Occasionally there's a scribble on one, and I always take those to heart because someone may have actually read my work before dismissing it as unworthy.

I will keep on sending my work out though, making sure that I have more paper sitting on editors' desks than rejection letters in my pile. Eventually the odds have to be in my favor. Or is this too much like playing the lottery? I dont' know. I do have those moments when I wonder if it's not a complete waste of time.....after all, it isn't writing. I'd sure like to get back to that.

But there's this pile of short stories now, yapping at me to send them off somewhere......