As we all know, summer submissions have officially opened for an ass-load of lit mags. Which means we’re all sending our shit out like crazy, wildly hoping that our work will get accepted.
This means rejection season has started.
I’ve seen countless friends and colleagues posting on social media about their rejections; with few exceptions they are mostly, and understandably, gutted. Rejections hit hard – especially for writers who are already convinced that their work is shit – and it seems so many of us struggle with trying to get out from under the gloom they cause.
But, bitch, I got a solution.
In two un-fuckup-able steps.
1. You have to emotionally detach from your work.
I know, I know. We all pour our hearts and souls into our writing. We spend what feels like lifetimes writing and cultivating a piece. This is our fucking baby.
But it’s really not.
It’s words on a page.
You have to sever the emotional tie you have to your work, or you’re going to continually feel like shit when the rejections roll in – and trust me, they will roll in.
This isn’t exclusive to rejections, though. It holds true for everything that follows afterward. If you don’t sever the tie you’re going to get upset and offended when an editor suggests changes or cleans up your work. Your ass hairs are REALLY gonna knot when there are bad reviews.
The piece is done; let it go. You’ve birthed the baby… don’t feed it, give it weekly allowance and send the little shit to college. It’s over. You’ve done your job.
2. Send it and forget it.
Remember what I said about severing the emotional tie? You’ve sent your little goblin in to the world, now leave it alone.
What I mean is this: stop checking your email every 30 god dammed seconds to see if the editor has replied.
If you have email notifications set on your phone – trust that the phone will send you a notification if you get an email. Opening up Gmail 30 million times a day isn’t going to manifest a fucking response. STOP.
Send the shit, and forget it. Move on with your life; write something new, submit to somewhere else, go to dinner, watch a movie, eat some pussy. DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN HYPER FOCUSING ON YOUR SUBMISSION.
If you do these two steps then you’ll find that the sting of rejection is no longer there. You’ll get the rejection and channel Ariana Grande and be like bitch, THANK YOU NEXT.
Poems that Suck 