REVIEW

/ janpriddyoregon

I missed this past Friday’s post. Apologies.

I love a stormy sky, and I surely got wet on the day I took this photo. We often are rained on during our walks. I know what it feels like to have gloves and rain gear soaked through, to feel my fingers stiffen. It’s why I understand the bits of rope we find onshore, usually with a knot, often only a knot cut from a working line. The man who cut that plastic twine or rope (maybe the woman) could barely feel their fingers. There was no chance of untying the knot. It drifts in the salt water until it’s cast onshore, and my husband and I gather it and toss it along with other bits of plastic and foam—all the pounds of litter we gather from the shore.

During the past year, I have submitted more work to more journals and presses than I ever have. I use Duotrope, so it’s easy to look up how many: 172. That doesn’t count the few submissions that Duotrope does not track. (They have their standards.) Most of those submissions were of several drafts of my novel, a few of reviews and essays and short stories. Four acceptances last year. I’ve submitted only a dozen times so far this year, usually at 4am, and I’ve spent $38 doing that. I spent $571.31 on submissions last year, mostly on contests. I will never win a contest, but I enter them to support journals I admire, and I’ve been short-listed now and again and won two grants.

Submissions to presses and journals and agents are mostly rejected. This is true for nearly all writers including those of us with a long list of publications and even those with a list of published books, just not Stephen King. One thing I found interesting in a recent rejection was a personal and complimentary note about the story that I’d revised since sending it to the same literary journal, using the same title, in 2008. It received a personal rejection the first time too. I’ve sent 24 pieces to this journal, seven of them have since been published elsewhere, but only that one story received a personal response. The New Yorker liked it enough to send a note: “While there is much to admire in this story, we regret…” What is most troubling is that I don’t understand what they like about it. Sometimes it works that way, and I give up.

A newer favorite story, “Many Violins,” hasn’t been sent out since the start of all this work on the rental. That this story makes me cry and smile by the end, seems a positive, but I haven’t sent it out since last summer. I have lost all sense of strategy for my submissions.

During these recent months, I have exhausted myself cleaning, scrubbing, stripping, sanding, painting, varnishing, nailing, hanging, hauling, and repairing. I’ve spent hours watching videos about how to do things and searching for parts and pieces I needed to complete my tasks. I have healing cuts and scrapes. Sore in places I don’t even know how I did it. I watch a couple of hours of Netflix or BritBox—nothing too grim. I’m tired. I’ve barely written anything other than these Friday posts, the occasional email, and sometimes a random and desperate submission sent off via Submittable while waiting for daylight.

If our new renter works out and pays the rent, we will eventually recover the $5k spent on the repairs and remodeling. Maybe sometime next year. We might afford home insurance, certainly we will pay our taxes, and I hope for a return to our old habit of daytime “vacations,” which was what we used to call any time we left the coast while my mother was unwell. We would visit Mom, drive to Portland, stay for an hour, and hurry home to check on Mom again, usually twice or three times. These past months have felt a little like that. We missed the Greek Festival in Portland last fall, but maybe we’ll get there this year. No overnight trips, but we miss the owner of Salvadore Molly’s and his wonderful tamales. Yesterday, we saw both of our sons, their spouses, and one grandchild. They all seem well. This morning, I sent a query and 25 pages off to a press and spent some time looking at Duotrope. Maybe that is hope.

My ghost story with a train and a tsunami needs revision but I don’t have the energy yet. I hope in the coming weeks that I will begin a new story. I hope I will print off a copy of my novel and begin a new draft, perhaps reverse the order of two chapters… It is my plan because a friend has promised me suggestions, has already sent several that I mean to refer to. I want to regain my trust that when I’ve written something worthy, it will find publication. First, however, I need to regain trust that I have written anything worthy.

10 thoughts on “REVIEW”

  1. looking back—reviewing—
    can mean that somehow somewhere
    things slowed maybe enough
    and with enough energy left
    there in the distant mirror
    stands an old friend
    smiling

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. You have been so busy with the business of writing and continuation of writing. Admiration springs up. I used to write several days a week for most of the day–the blog, poetry otherwise, a novel with several revisions, Now I write and know it will likely not go anywehere, partly because I stopped submitting/getting acceptances or rejections. Partly because I keep running out of energy and time. Maybe I neewd to get more serious–intentional, as they say. The years grow shorter. But writing even one or two days/week is good to continue, anyway.

    Thanks for your posts.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. Out of all my rejections, I’ve had a couple that made me think my submission was actually read. Once the reviewer of an academic journal wrote me a lengthy response, mostly chiding me for sending what was “obviously” a paper written for a classroom assignment. The reviewer made it clear that they were offended and yet they noted that I cared about my subject and while they didn’t want to hear from me again, they wished me well. It was weird and I suppose if I hadn’t been so thin-skinned myself, I would have focused on the positive criticism. Another time, I received a handwritten note from the editor saying he was truly sorry to reject my submission. I felt special (a handwritten note!) until I heard that this editor was known to be very considerate and generally sent handwritten rejections.

    I haven’t submitted anything in years. I got tired of trying to figure out why my piece didn’t “fit.” We are admonished to read the journals we submit to, to discern the kind of work they want to receive for consideration. Done that. Still rejected without any better understanding of why. I do understand that reviewers have limited time, but even if they were to say, “I couldn’t get past the first paragraph, your story was so boring” … that would help.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I feel what you are saying.

      A story rejection once came with the complaint that the voice was “too old” to be a four-year-old boy’s. I agreed, which was why it was written in third person. A writer-friend once detailed everything she didn’t like about my story (voice, characters, plot, dialogue, sentences…) and what she liked—no, wait, she didn’t like anything about it. Mostly from journals it’s just a form No, though sometimes with some statement to the effect that all judgment is subjective and wishing me luck “placing your story elsewhere.” None of those responses are in the least helpful.

      Critical/peer readers can only offer their perspective and point to what is working or not working. It always goes back to the author. I’ve read published works that I read as earlier drafts, and they still contained errors I’d pointed to, even grammatical errors that might have easily been corrected. [shrug]

      One year, back in the 1990s, I had read so many literary journals that when Best American Short Stories came out, I’d already read all but one.

      My thesis advisor lamented the entire process of submitting to literary journals. “No one reads them,” he said.

      Still, I have had acceptance letters where editors responded that they “loved” my story.

      What I’ve learned from reading Best American Short Stories for a few decades, is that even good writers sometimes choose terrible stories, that some authors are looking for writers like themselves, that others are looking for the story they want to write next. And sometimes, the entire collection is wonderful.

      When I was teaching peer editing—mostly of essays—I asked high school students to do three things: briefly restate what you understand the author is saying/their argument or story; ask questions wherever you are confused or need more (or less); and compliment strengths because they need to know what they’re doing right so that they can do more of it. If they recognized an error, they could point it out, and if they were certain they know how to correct the error, they might note the correction.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • I was taught (and taught) the same about peer reviews. And more recently and with much smaller journals, I have gotten rejections with helpful feedback. But it’s the ones from when I was working on my MA that stand out for me, probably because that’s all anyone cared about: to get published.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment