1,198. That’s the total number of emails I have rejecting my writing, mostly short stories, but also novel manuscripts I’ve sent to agents and other various non-fiction pieces. That does not include the rejections I got back in the day before everything was online, when you’d have to make the effort of printing your work, putting it in the mail, waiting an untold amount of time, only to get back a copy and paste slip that was cut from a page full of them saying, “Thanks but no thanks.” In that time I’ve gotten 43 stories accepted for publication. You don’t have to be a math genius to realize the laughably small success rate. Is it madness to continue on in such a fashion? Probably.

(In preparing for this post I opened said folder, which I’m not sure I’ve ever done. In the process I accidentally deleted the “Rejections” label, and apparently it is impossible to recover once you do that. Soooo, some of the following is estimates, but maybe it’s better this way – I have needed a fresh start for ages.)

I first started submitting stories online in 2010 or 2011. This was completely at random, without any knowledge of the literary landscape. I simply looked up the basic formatting and sent pieces off to a few lit mags. Not surprisingly, they were all rejected. I was working online for a non-partisan political non-profit at the time, and all the time spent typing left me with horrible carpal tunnel-like symptoms. Numerous times it became difficult to even turn door knobs or wash my own dishes. Since that was my livelihood, it would have been absurd to devote much time at all to being online, or even physically writing, unless it was for work. Miserable over this situation that had gone on for years, I quit that job and spent most of my savings traveling solo around the country for 80 days, determined to finish my first novel. (Which I did, while in Rapid City, SD. Still working on getting it published…)

Once back in Alabama, where I was living at the time, I decided to hunker down and figure out the whole submission process, and find a job that left me with the physical ability to do so. Rejections piled up and I started collecting them in that folder. As it seemed more and more futile I said either something gets accepted or I give this up forever. Then it happened. In June 2014 a poem was accepted and I got a taste of what it’s like when someone who doesn’t know me sees value – no matter how small – in my work, and there was no turning back, no matter the growing mountain of rejections.

There is a small body of people, surely all creatives in some fashion, who will read this and understand. The rest will scoff and never get it, and for those people I feel truly sorry. To me, most humans do things that are much more bizarre than believing in their own work enough to risk endless rejection. A partial list of these include:

  • Eating food that’s not really food, and drinking liquids that are mostly chemicals, and wondering why they feel like garbage all the time.
  • Worshiping celebrities and the rich, even if they’re terrible people.
  • Watching reality shows that showcase the worst of humanity, helping to line the pockets of the purveyors of such trash so that they can create more trash and continue to get richer and richer while they themselves struggle to survive.
  • Not believing in ourselves and thus allowing ourselves to be stuck in a mundane, nondescript life where we never do anything but consume and have pre-thought thoughts.
  • Spending 7 hours (or more) staring at screens while the beauty of life is constantly unfolding around us.
  • Believing that people who don’t look like us or talk like us somehow don’t suffer like us, or have the same desires we do.
  • Never let our brains properly rest (i.e. allow ourselves to be bored) then wonder why we’re so strung out/anxious/exhausted

And most bizarre of all, and what perhaps explains everything above – we pretend we’re not going to die.

With all that, the question perhaps is: Is it madness to pursue any artwork, investing hours and hours without any guarantee that anyone else will ever give a damn? Absolutely, madness in the most wonderful way possible. Madness that makes the absurdity of life worth it, madness that adds flavor and texture to everything that one does, madness that adds to the fascinating human parade that’s constantly marching on.

I may never get another story accepted, and that’s okay, I’ll keep at it regardless. There is nothing in that, to me, which feels like banging my head against the wall, because success comes in all sorts of hues, and if you think the only way to measure success is the monetary end that comes of something, then you best get some good padding for your walls.