Submission Decisions

I must have very few of the qualities that seem normally associated with writers. Not the creative stuff or the knack of plot finding (though they're tough enough and my aptitude in that area, such as it is, cannot be wholly relied upon), but the other traits you need when you get a knock-back.  The kind that suggests resolve, unbreakable self-belief, grim determination, bloody-mindedness even. I have read or heard so many accounts of writers sticking countless rejection slips on the walls of downstairs loos or in garden sheds. There they would be displayed as cocked-snooks to those who would judge their work negatively: exhibited proudly as hard proof and validation that they are writers who can embrace failure as quickly and with pretty much the same enthusiasm as success.  Rejection does not represent failure is the thinking, just another important step towards ultimate success. It is a force for good as opportunities are now available to hatch new approaches to make the writing tighter, to bring in more suspense, to use sparer prose, to create more interesting characters; the list is endless. And then undaunted, re-submit: again and again and again until hitting, if not a bull's-eye at least part of his body.  After all, look at the roll call of role models writers have as dogged inspiration.  Stephen King, whose wife kick started his career by rescuing a manuscript that he'd tossed in the fire on receiving his 200th rejection.  J D Salinger and J K Rowling collected rejection letters like they were post cards from secret lovers, and Louise (Little Women) Alcott, who was told to go back to teaching as it's 'what you do well.'  Richard Adams was told his book Watership Down didn't have a chance because the subject material and the vocabulary didn't sync).  The list goes on. But what do I do? After one rejection decide that it's all a waste of time and go back to the day job. What a wimp.

In truth this was only a couple of life writing stories for which I sacrificed most of the fiction writing conventions for language - there was never going to be tension, surprise or inciting incidents found in them, they were in fact nothing more than glorified diary entries.  The trick I suppose, is to know your market. The publishers, it turned out,were looking for something that ticked the majority of the boxes for conventional short stories, or if not it should be poetry, ideally free verse, not something that might look like it sits somewhere in between. I knew I was sunk when one of the selectors for this new publications wrote on their website that having been tasked with reading the life writing submissions for the new book, had felt frustrated by reading too many entries that failed to grip her. Grip her? I found this statement odd. I read quite a lot of autobiography before embarking on the life writing phase - not all of it gripping.  This is particularly true of childhood memories that rely more on observation, language and ideas such as Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie or Blake Morrison's When Did You Last See Your Father. Whatever one says about those pieces of work, and I happen to think they are elegant, poetic,and thought provoking, they certainly aren't gripping, nor were they ever meant to be. And neither were my submissions. But they failed to impress and I suspect it's because they weren't sufficiently... gripping, even though that was never a preference expressed by the publishers.    

Perhaps on reflection I should have turned them into free verse poems. Maybe I should now? Possibly. Or perhaps I should just print off the 'Thank you for your submission email however we won't be using either of your stories this time. Please keep writing and consider re-submitting to our words for Wednesday features on our website' stick it up in my garden shed and get back to writing some new stuff, show some of that - what was it? resolve, unbreakable self-belief, grim determination and bloody-mindedness.