Brace Yourself

Today I received what felt like my first, "This is almost just right," praise from my mentor. It was one of the poems that recently got accepted by Parable Press (an online lit mag). She had a few suggested tweaks (which now I wish I could fix to my submission), but it's the closest to done that I've gotten out of my packets this semester--my most successful. I was riding a litte high on this news, and then I opened my email and found my first rejection letter of the year.

Ouch.

And just last night I was thinking, well, I still haven't been rejected for these contests, and most of them end in March, so I must be doing all right. And then they shot me in the foot with that one. My initial reaction was a great deal of disappointment, but rejection is just a part of the game, and the mag that rejected me was the one I thought would be least likely to accept me anyway. So! I got on google and searched for rejection memes to make myself feel better. I'm compilling my favorites here so that I can make it through March and the results that it will bring by looking here when I need a laugh. My particular favorite:

 

 

My second favorite:

And then, in no particular order, the rest of them:

Hopefully, those of you that read my blog and are in the same game that I am will be able to appreciate the rejection humor to when you need to overcome your own onslaught of denial. I think what hurts the most is seeing the "Declined" in my Submittable list. It's all ugly and red and almost overshadows the "Accepted" a few lines down from it. I have about five other places where my work is in review right now, though, so hopefully one (or more! please, more!) will add to the green instead of red. I also need to find more places to submit in the near future. I went off the list Blas gave me my first semester, and I think I've used all of them, but I'll have to check. I might have skipped the more intimidating ones. =/

Anyway, I suppose now I should finish getting ready for my creative writing class this evening. All of my students are strong writers, but I love getting to critique and help them edit their stuff to make it better. They seem to catch on pretty quick to what I'm trying to explain to them. Until next time.