I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

It's beginning to look a lot like rejection...

Just finished up a lot of homework kinds of things and was thinking of starting into rewrites of A History of Lightning when "I've got mail!"

The fine editors over at Goblin Fruit sent me a very nice rejection email for "Scrimshaw Man." Sent a thank you note (the rejection was very nice and I think it was close). I took a few rounds through the poem to see what I could refine. Deleted a word, added another word. And then I went to go look for resubmission while I pondered other edits.

That's when my brain sort of went, "sprung!" There was a fleetingly short burst of information across the synapses, a detailed plan of what I needed to do to find another market. Then blankness. The shoulders slumped. As I tried to recreate the process of resubmissions I didn't so much hit the wall of sleep as it came crashing in on me.

I've been burning the candle at both ends and having the emotions/expectations played to a limit for the past few days and it's caught up with me. Time to go to bed. Heck, I might even read a little (it's been over a week). Then go comatose until tomorrow morning when I need to get up even earlier than normal.

3 comments:

Rick said...

Hey, their loss, Steve. Good luck with getting back into gear.

Leaf, Branch, Bark & Root said...

Just keep sending stuff out and keep writing. Eventually, the right story will hit the right editor at the right time. I'll keep at it too. Be well - got your card - see you both in a couple weeks!

Steve Buchheit said...

Thanks guys. It wasn't the rejection that drained me. It just hit at the right moment. I started to load up Duotrope and another market list to find a new one, and my brain shifted from second to overdrive and over-reved. I had only experienced that a few times before. Faster than I could consciously process I had gone through the whole process for submission in my head. There was the sound of tires screeching, metal crunching and glass tinkling. At that point all the edits I was thinking about fled like scared rabbits and I got overwhelmingly tired.

So we'll get back to it tonight, as long as I don't have household duties (or at least too many of them).