Our pal Martin Barkley’s story “W’s Decorum” was published recently at Queen Mob’s Tea House.
We knew Martin had been working on — submitting, polishing, submitting, polishing — that story for many years, and it set us to wondering: after six years of
rejection, had he ever felt like giving up on “W’s Decorum”? What kept him from doing so? How did it feel to finally have someone pick it up? i.e., was the pleasure worth the pain?
He was kind enough to write about the experience over on WBN's blog:
"I wrote this story that was rejected eight times over the course of six years. In between offering the story and receiving refusals, I was busy writing other things, so that factored into the lengthy timeline to publication, but I kept coming back to the story.
"Because I keep a spreadsheet of my submissions, I know how many times and where the piece got
the kibosh.
"About half the editors responded quickly, perhaps too quickly to have actually read the piece. Three of the submissions sat in a slush pile for two months or more, which is fairly standard, but it does drag out the process. As does the stingy 'No Simultaneous Submission' policy, which I resentfully obeyed whenever
required."
How about you folks? What keeps you submitting? How do you keep yourself from giving up? Leave a comment to let us know.
