• Rejections so far: 57
• Acceptances: 4
• Total submissions: 87
• Total submissions last year at this time: 5

I was pretty confident, in the depths of my Eeyore-esque soul, that I was going to finish out 2017 with no other acceptances, but then I got 3 in one week and now I have to do the other kind of reality testing. I.e., rejections are a part of life, but so are acceptances. (So are three thousand dollar plumbing fixes that have to be re-done, at great damage to one’s dining room ceiling and one’s sanity, but that’s another topic.)

I will not achieve that goal of 100 rejections in 2017. Whereas submitting a packet is something I have control over, whether I get a rejection in any particular time-frame is something I have no control over. Once I hit “send,” it’s in the hands of editors, readers, and slush piles; some of these processes are speedy, others are ponderous, and it’s not up to me how that works; I have to let it progress in its own time. So in thinking about this, I’m now recalibrating my goals. I don’t care so much if I get the rejections, but I’d like to get to 100 submissions this year. It’s doable, and I’ll be really happy to achieve that milestone. And as for 2018? I’m thinking 150 submissions.

The thing that holds me back the most from submitting is a lack of confidence. I have windows of positivity where I feel strongly “I’ve got five good poems,” and I put the packet together, and the only thing that keeps me from sending it out is a time constraint. But what’s much more likely to stop me in my tracks is feeling that I need to revise some more, and not trusting myself to know how to do it, or not able to concentrate, or not possessing a belief in the work and an excitement about it. And that’s a different challenge from just not being able to make the revision work or not being happy with the result. Looking back on my writing career, an insufficient ego has probably been my biggest stumbling block. I think in the project of pushing to get rejections, I’ve been able to confront this to some degree.

Sending out a lot of submissions has also forced me to finish poems faster, to let go of them sooner. I think overall this has been really good for me. But in some ways, I’m also kind of pushing back against it. Sometimes a poem really does need to sit for months or years before you can look at it with clear eyes and see where its structure needs to be rebuilt. A writer friend of mine said recently “I’m a slow writer and I need to understand that and be okay with my process.” I don’t ever want to publish something that I feel is not whole or ready. So my 2018 tactic needs to take that into account. After all, my end goal isn’t just to publish anything; it’s to create a small and lasting structure of meaning.

And that’s all the news from my Spreadsheet of Doom.

Just kidding, I love my Spreadsheet of Doom. 😀

The very, very, very long view.