Author: mardra

Those Lowdown Rejection Blues

There you sit. The message in your hand or on your screen reads,

“Thank you for your submission, but it does not meet our current needs.”

How do you not feel the lowdown rejection blues. You worked hard on that story, novel or poem. You gave up precious sleep to write the drafts. You spent hours at your computer searching for just the right literary journal or publisher for your work. You waited weeks or months for a response, and when it comes it tells you nothing useable. It doesn’t tell you why the publisher didn’t want your work, or how to make it meet the publisher’s “current needs.” What are those needs? Don’t writers have needs, too?

You are in Good Company

Marcia ForeckiWe’ve all heard the statistics. Stephen King received dozens of rejections for Carrie. Margaret Mitchell received 38 rejections for Gone With the Wind. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 26 publishers before it was accepted, and went on to win the 1963 Newberry Award. Nicholas Sparks was turned down 31 times for The Notebook. Anne Frank’s diary was turned down by 16 publishers.

The takeaway from this, of course, is that if you submit your writing for publication you will be rejected. It’s in the writer’s job description. Accept it. So, how do you handle those inevitable rejections? Here are three strategies that will help you get over the rejection blues.

Continue reading “Those Lowdown Rejection Blues”

Why I Write

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“A cyclical addiction that I cannot deny,

I am lured by the mixing of reality with hope. I binge on the emotion, wallowing in its depth. The endorphins give me the texture, enable the distorted visions, and find the purpose in tragedy. Touching the places in the soul that are held private; protected.

The motion is not graceful and feels sudden when I urgently purge all of these senses onto the canvas. Notebook after notebook of scratches, words barely legible in the intoxication of the moment. Moving the pen to the muse – allowing her to torment me, taunt me, into motion. Purging what I have not only felt, but also seen, heard, touched, tasted, believed and was betrayed.

The cycle continues with the shame. The guilt of vanity – did I really think I could do this? The fear. Failure to touch a single soul. Failure to convey what was mine and is now yours. The crash. The hangover. The editor. Swooping in to fill my head with the pounding of doubt. The sun that filled my spirit with joyous motion has turned to burn the scars and remnants of urban, modern, social, responsible realities.

Yet, the gnawing in my gut stirs again. Am I hungry? I sneak away for a taste in solitude. I am as a child in the corner, anxious and watching the world’s motion speeding by. I begin to fill up on the moment, the passion, the fear. I succumb to swim in the poetry and let the words dance about my spirit. I greedily digest every emotion without inhibition knowing I will have to throw it all up to the universe. Pay the toll. And hope to become hungry again.”

Prose by Mardra Sikora

Published in the Summer 2012 Fine Lines Journal

Why do you write?

 

 

Prescription for All Artists

David Martin, Fine Lines founder, writer, and teacher prescribes every artist to watch this video of Neil Gaiman’s 2012 Keynote address now, and again, whenever you need a shot in the arm.

Mr. Gaiman goes beyond giving you, yes you, permission to create. It is a call to action. You! Create!

Do not doubt your mission, watch and then go. act.

What did you think?

We are anxious to read what you do next.