Writing and rejection.

This week I received my first rejection letter in a long time. First rejection letter in a long time because it was my first submission to an actual real publication in a long time. Three poems from the series I’ve been working on, sent off in early June as part of an assignment from the writing group I belong to. I won’t say to where because that’s less important than the fact I received not only the form letter, but an encouraging handwritten note by the poetry editor who said – “I enjoyed reading these, please submit again”. This implies (to my literary ladies and Brian at least) that the poetry is good but doesn’t fit what the journal is looking for. Which is heartening – if they are telling me the truth about the rarity of such handwritten notes on rejection slips.

In any event I’m actually pleased about the rejection as it implies having work finished enough for submission – which is a big step forward for me after years of “wanting to find more time to write”. I plan to edit these pieces one more time and send them out to another journal for consideration – hoping that at some point they get printed on someone else’s page somewhere.