The 27th already! What appeared to be “plenty of time” last week has slimmed itself down considerably. I will be Ok, but an extra week would be handy. The three rejected haibun are, I have decided, going out again with a couple of words tweaked. I’m happy they were good enough for an acceptance last time out. It is just, as I have found before, that some editors don’t like my style. If I was a bad writer, everybody would return my work. If I were a patchy writer of variable quality, all editors would reject me at some point. Generally that doesn’t happen. Some editors accept me. others reject. Once in a while something will be rejected unexpectedly, but that can usually be put down to (a) it being a bit too obscure or (b) rushed and not good enough.
In an ideal world I would, I suppose, be able to write to a quality that it was impossible to reject, or would be skilful enough to appeal to all readers. So far that hasn’t happened, though I continue to practice writing with the aim of global domination.
Allysum with ladybird
However, I have just looked through the index of a recent magazine. and looked for the names of the three editors who have recently rejected me. They aren’t in. It could be that they didn’t submit anything, or it could be that they were unsuccessful. It’s difficult to tell, but I do know that one of them has written on the subject of how many times they have submitted some poetry before it was accepted. That article was why I always give poems a second and third chance.
It’s a bit like writing long pieces of text – much of the work and skill is in the rewriting. With poetry, much of the time is used in post mortems of returned submissions. To be a good writer of haibun, it’s not enough to write well (which is hard enough) but you have the suit an editor, follow fashion (without being hackneyed) and do a number of other things I haven’t grasped yet. I know that sounds strange, but it’s all part of the constant learning process – the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns of poetry
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Keep writing! I will enjoy reading your book of poetry whenever it does come out. I am still hopeful.
Me too! 🙂
We would all like to live in your ideal world
I supposer that’s why we never retired from writing. 🙂
I have never entered anything like your poetry magazine setup. But I do understand a little bit of how you feel everytime I post on WordPress and wait to notice which of my followers didn’t respond.
If I don’t respond it’s the result of a disordered mind. I expect you guessed that. 🙂
I’m not a great fan of the meticulous mind. I’ve had a headmaster who expected all the students to fit neatly into his expectations. In Aussie parlance he was a deadset dropkick.
🙂 If only Shakespeare had been Australian his plays would have been more fun.
The key to a certain extent must be your own evaluation of your writing. You probably wouldn’t get much satisfaction from something you thought was pretty poor being accepted, and you might be much more satisfied, though a bit put out, by something that you thought was first rate work even though it didn’t please an editor.
That is the truth. I still feel the pain of having something accepted which I wrote specifically for an editor. I thought it was poor, and toadying, and it will never appear anywhere again. I have actually retired some poems which I like but cannot place. Their time will come!
You are doing so well just to get accepted from various editors. 😀 I look at competition judges and just know I’m wasting my time entering a short story. 😂
I work on the basis that to become immune to rejection I should try to experience plenty of it. It’s still a work in progress. Your two novels contain far more accepted words than I have ever written 🙂
That’s a very good attitude, although my first book was rejected by about 40 agents 😂 They “Liked it, but it wasn’t for them.” Do you ever get that little gem of a reply? 😀
I’ve had similar replies but not that precise one. The ones that I hate are the ones that recommend paying for their mentoring services. 🙂
Yup, lots of people out there looking to sell something, some of them aren’t even human 😂
I once worked for a sales manager that definitely wasn’t. A cross between an reptile and a weasel.
😂😂
To be fair, he wasn’t keen on me either. 🙂
Your reflections on writing poetry has made me think about my own writing, especially the rewriting. Part of the problem with blogging is that there isn’t much rewriting. The goal, even when posting once a week, is to get the piece posted. I suppose that is also a strength, working on a regular deadline.
Looking back at old blogs posts I am often mortified by the number of typos. Even with recent ones, to be honest. Poetry is the best words in the best order, my blogging, as you say, tends to be any word before midnight. 🙂