From Me to You (An Administrative Advice Column for Writers)

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Play a Miniature Lament for Me

Yesterday I got a ninth rejection for a story with which I am perfectly content as it is. I'm constitutionally opposed to trunking it, because it's a story I loved while I was writing it, loved slightly less when I revised it, and love possibly more now that I've gotten used to those revisions.

It is not a story that I'm proud of having written in terms of its topic or character focus. But the language, yes. I said it how I wanted to say it. If you're a writer, you know that's a miracle, and it's a miracle I don't look on lightly, and I just want someone else (preferably an editor) to love it as much as I do. But no one does.


Anyway. For one of my classes, I'm having to write every week, and two weeks in it's turning out to be really good for me. I don't know what it means that historically, my exercises, often completed in a couple of hours, usually end up more reader-friendly than the stuff I labor on for weeks. But maybe it means the same thing as, you know, the above. That I have no idea what bits I write are any good and what bits I write are sucky.

Does anyone else have this problem? Because I would really like to feel less alone in it.

1 comment:

  1. Sometimes I am in the "zone" and sometimes I am not. I do find if I give myself some time away from something I have written and revisit it I think, "Hey, this sounds like a real story." Creativity is a tricky bitch.

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