REJECTION
I have made my desire to become a published writer public. I have even gone so far as to volunteer to blog about the things that I learn along the way to getting published. I am after all, the epitome of a Newbie Writer. An adult well into my retirement years, I finally have time and opportunity to work on my writing. I am not so old though that I cannot learn something new, and it looks like I will be learning how to write something I have never written before.
I was so excited when I finally heard from the editor of Constant Content. I had begun to look for a response a day or two after I submitted my article even though I knew that Ed would be slower to look at my unrequested article, I still looked for a response every day. I was pleasantly surprised when just four days after I submitted my first article, I received an e-mail from CC.
My excitement quickly turned to disappointment though when I read the first few lines telling me my article had been rejected. How could that be? I wondered. I knew that this was my first attempt to write an article but hadn’t I done all the right things to make sure it would be accepted?
I made a mental list of the things I had done to ensure my success. I carefully read all the writers guidelines, (or so I thought) and I bought an e-book telling me ‘how to’ write for Constant Content. I even went the extra step by sending my finished piece to an author and asking her pretty please to critique my article.
I didn’t really expect the author, (who shall remain nameless here), to look at my article let alone take her precious time to take an editing pen to my entire article, line by line. I was so impressed that she spent so much time on editing and explaining what was wrong with my article that I didn’t even feel discouraged by her criticisms. Constructive though they were, they did sting just a little but I sucked it up and felt grateful for the help. I printed out her commentary and went through my piece line by line making the corrections she suggested. I went back and checked my sources to make sure I had not inadvertently lifted a phrase or anything that could be considered plagiarism and finally I looked up some of the grammatical changes the author suggested. I didn’t just want to copy the semicolons without knowing why I was going to use them.
Still, here it is, my article was rejected. In a span of several seconds I went through a myriad of emotions. My first thought was, “You should have known better, you can’t write! Closely followed by a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I thought about the many short stories and essays just lying in a drawer. I have never even tried to publish any of them, so what was I doing trying this? I guess because it didn’t look hard to me when I read the articles on Constant Content and other sites. I found several mistakes in many of them and I thought, “I can do this,” I can write an article, it doesn’t look so hard.
Well the mark of an expert is that they always make “it” whatever the “it” is, look easier to do than it really is. Such is the case here I am sure. I have decided that I would like to write some articles for the web and now I must suck it up and realize that “This article requires revision”, is not so much a rejection as a direction to try again. So try again I will and like the suggestions from the author I will go through my article again and try to make the editors happy. If I can do that, I think I will be well on my way to learning to write just about anything. It’s all a learning process after all isn’t it, and I can always stand to learn something new, so I will try and try again.
