After last month's post about my penchant for being a serial submitter, I received notice that a poem of mine made it into a finalist spot for an anthology to be published later this month, an announcement that came less than a week after the submission deadline. My first thought: they must have been desperate for content. My next thought was that I'd unwittingly invoked the imposter syndrome (the subject of my June 2024 blog post).
Haven't I learned anything about doubting myself? I've been published in other anthologies, and I've won awards. Yet I still manage to succumb to the voice that says these accolades were all just a fluke. Talk about a head case!
Two other publications I submitted to around the same time (yes, this serial submitter has turned in several pieces since last month's post about her penchant for serial submitting) are highly competitive magazines that boast a turn-around time of six months. One publication didn't provide much in the way of guidelines, instead suggesting that we lowly writers subscribe to their magazine to see examples of what they deem worthy. I agree with familiarizing oneself with an individual publication's style, etc. But I got the feeling that these folks think pretty highly of themselves. Thus, you might understand why I was a tad skeptical about the aforementioned rapid acceptance of my work.
Despite the air of we really couldn't care less about supplying guidelines—you should be thankful we have an open submission period, I imagined those heady publications just might be shocked and awed by the distinguished writer that I am. They should be so privileged to have someone like me even consider sharing my work with them. And then I returned to Earth One, LOL.
Lest you think I have a propensity to swing between lows and highs with respect to my self-regard as a poet, back-to-back rejections keep me grounded. An added "bonus" these rejections bring is encouragement to keep writing—a positive feedback loop that improves my odds of being published. Additionally, the more I'm rejected, the easier it is to let said rejections roll off my back, and to move beyond the yucky feeling they elicit.
Interestingly, the last "not interested" I received came in the form of a short essay wherein the in-house editorial team went on for days (and paragraphs) about the difficult nature of choosing winners from so many fine pieces. It read like a catharsis for not having selected my work and that of others. At first, I thought this guilt-ridden rejection letter was a farce. By its conclusion, however, I wanted to reply with a note of reassurance stating they'd done the right thing, that not everybody is a winner, that no one is going to dox them for the decisions they made.
I'm sure there's a lesson in these contrasting editorial sentiments; I'm just not sure what it is.
Nevertheless, I consider my latest success a result of having multiple irons in the fire. And this is the mantra I'm sticking with as long as it keeps me writing!