Tag Archives: rejection

The Mystery of Editors and Some Thoughts on Writer’s Block

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

I had my first acceptance from the July submissions on Monday. It was a tanka that had actually been rejected in June, but after a quick check I decided that it was ready to go again.  It was part of a group of nine that had been returned after the tenth was accepted, so I only needed to write one to make the submission up to ten.

It’s one of the age-old questions writers have. I send out ten poems, one is accepted, does that mean the other nine are not good enough?

Sometimes I’ve had an editor ask if they can hold one over for the next edition. I always say yes to that – it saves me work and I assume it saves them work too. If it wasn’t for editors there wouldn’t be any magazines. And if there were no editors and magazines there would be no competition for publication. That’s why I mainly only blog poems that have been published – it means that someone who knows more about it than I do has decided that it merits space.

I’ve also had editors select two or three poems (very, very rarely) and a couple of times they have told me the rest weren’t bad, just not what they wanted for the moment, and I could submit them again at the next submission window. This is very rare – remember we are talking about something in the region of 400 submissions and this sort of thing has happened a handful of times.

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It all tends to indicate that several of the ten are publishable, and that they can all be recycled. That’s why I like editors who give quick decisions. If they reject something in the first few weeks, I can use them for another submissions and don’t need to write as much.

This may be a bad attitude, and more akin to the approach of a  worker on a production line than an artist but  this month I’ve just had an article on collectables published in a magazine, plus four Facebook articles for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire and  a couple of longer articles  for the Peterborough Military History Group. If I waited for aesthetics and inspiration to align I’d struggle. Dawn comes, I drag myself from bed, I make tea, then I start writing. I hate mornings. I like tea and I like writing. I have no time for Writer’s Block and curlicues. And I’m more likely to suffer from dehydration than a shortage of words. I have no time for the introspection in the article behind the link. It’s very interesting, and more than slightly familiar, but I can’t afford to let such thoughts take root.

Photo by Roman Koval on Pexels.com

 

A Lost Week!

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Golden key (actually silver-gilt, used by Sir Arthur Blake KBE at the opening of the Nottingham savings Bank branch on St Ann’s Well Road, Nottingham, November 23, 1926

I just looked at the date on my last post and received a shock. I knew it had been a while, but was amazed to find it was a whole seven days. So, what have I been doing?

Not much.

From the point of view of colour rendition this shows I stll have a lot to learn. Taken only seconds apart under the same light

I have become addicted to writing articles about junk. I have now done four for the research page of the Peterborough Military History Group, a couple more for the newsletter and nineteen posts for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire Facebook page. I’m never sure if these really count as “acceptances” as they are short and they are submitted to people I know.  On the other hand, poems are short too. I became obsessed with “The Golden Key” as I started writing it. I’ve had it about 30 years and never really got on with it, so it was about time. I can’t set a link directly to it but it’s currently at the top if yo use the link above.

Even better if you can leave a “Like”. It’s part of my crusade to strike back against traditional coins. There’s a place for kings and stuff in numismatics, but for every King there are thousands of commoners and they all have stories too.

Sir Arthur Blake KBE JP – a photograph taken later in life – courtesy of the national portrait gallery.

Talking about acceptances – I had a rejection this morning. It means that my record for April is 100% rejections. Not one single acceptance. It’s a strange month, as there was only one journal open for submissions, and that was only open until 15th April, which is why I can tell you, by the 24th, that I have a 100% rejection record. I’m sure I’ll get over it.

That’s it for now. I will have some cracking photos for you over the next few days as we have been going through some old boxes. However, for now,

 

One Door Opens as Another Door Closes

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I’ve just being going through my spam box. I am expecting an email which hasn’t arrived, and was checking it hadn’t been rejected in error. It hadn’t. It’s a depressing place – I have won several prizes in competitions I haven’t entered, have numerous parcels needing to be collected, have to step in to stop various things being cancelled and have had to ignore several requests for sexual favours from women with exotic names.

Julia says they are all actually likely to be from sweaty men working in distant call centres, including the ones from the “women”. It’s a relief  in a way – I really don’t need a car care kit or an electric drill, or a mystery package, and my days of exotic women are definitely in the past. Apart from being married, I’m entering that phase of my life where Pointless and a nice cup of tea hold more attractions than erotic adventures. Anyway, as I may have mentioned, getting my trousers on and off is something of a trial these days.

It’s going to be a tough month. Having done my  submissions I sat back and reflected on the likely success rate as many of them had been out before and some of them were rushed.  One was going to an editor who has never accepted a haibun off me in six years. Derrick asked why I sent things to him. It’s a good question. There are several answers to this. One is that rejection keeps my feet on the ground. I have had some very successful runs of acceptances, but it’s always good to remember that it’s nor assured. A second is that you need constant rejections to stay immune from their demoralising effects. And third is the need to have targets – I’ve set 100 submissions as this year’s target, and I have minor targets like wearing down certain editors who constantly reject me.

I have already had one reply, as I mentioned, asking for a few alterations to one piece. I have now had a second reply rejecting a second lot. It’s one of “those” rejections, he ones that seem helpful but close with the comment that you should read XYZ for more pointers. I’ve had several like that over the years and always wonder why they think I haven’t read XYZ, particularly when it’s been a fixture on the website for the last five years.

Anyway, it was good news in a way. After slightly polishing two of them I am now in a position to submit all three rejected pieces to another magazine this month. It’s a system that has worked before. It’s important to remember that a rejection is only a sign of one editor’s opinion and other editors may have different opinions.

My Orange Parker Pen

Far Too Relaxed

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Nuthatch at Rufford Abbey

I’ve been relaxing so much that I seem to have forgotten how to blog. However, i’m back now and intending to get more disciplined. Strange isn’t it, that I became erratic when I didn’t have regular internet access, and now that I have proper access I have remained erratic? There’s something about human nature wrapped up in that. Or maybe just something about my capacity for procrastination.

One of the things I was going to do was make a submission for December. I still have time, so I probably will. I also have some pieces to submit, though several of them are returns from last month. Last month’s single submission was returned unaccepted. That’s yet another way of saying it was rejected.

It’s no big deal, things get rejected all the time. If I didn’t get rejected there would be no point in submitting anything. It keeps me sharp(ish) and makes me happier about the acceptances.

Blue tits on feeder

However, I’m not particularly impressed by the extended response of the editor. It’s nice of him to take time to give me advice, but when that advice is to read a book (which I have already read three times) and to look in a magazine for further tips (a magazine where I have actually been published 5 times this year) I can’t help thinking that I should send him a note telling that I have read his advice with interest but it isn’t quite right for me at this particular time . . .

However, I won’t. Editors are busy people and he may not appreciate my sense of humour.

Incidentally, this year’s figures so far are – 20 acceptances, 7 rejections. This compares with 27 and 10 for 2023, which I thought was a poor year.  I have had whooping cough, been in hospital and moved house this year (and written 23 short pieces for the Numismatic Society) so I won’t be too hard on myself, but it’s definitely time to get a grip and start working harder. If you don’t keep pushing yourself it’s very easy just to wake up one day and realise you have stopped writing poetry. I know, because I did it once before.

Pictures are birds on feeders.

Long Tailed Tit

 

The Promised Second Post of the Day

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Several years ago I was a member of the Poetry Society. The poetry in The Poetry Review was a bit highbrow for me, and I’m not very sociable so the constant emails from the local group were a bit irritating. This was particularly so as they circulated my email address to every other member of the group, which resulted in some spam. It wasn’t a massive problem but I could have done without it.

Eventually, after disappearing without trace when I entered the National Competition (members got a second entry free), I sent some submissions to the magazine. Well, you have to try, don’t you? I was rejected. I didn’t mind that, I’ve been rejected plenty of times. I did slightly mind the tone of the rejection, though I’ve been rejected in a patronising manner more than once. I’m sure it will happen again, particularity in a field where many practitioners have two or three degrees.

What I did mind was the suggestion, contained in a link, that I might like to make use of the Poetry Society’s  editing service. I can’t remember how much it used to cost, but it wasn’t the cost that annoyed me – it was the inappropriate nature of rejecting poems and then trying to sell the services of the society.

Much the same thing happened today. A magazine that turned me down a few weeks ago has just written. I can, it seems, send them £3 and they will send me the title of the poem they were interested in. And next month, if I send another £12 they will tell me why it was better than my other poems, give me their thoughts on it and, possibly, advice on developing it. They left the £12 until the end.

It may well be that I need to take advice, but it’s the manner in which it’s offered. Plus, to be honest, I have had some good advice on haibun from various editors, who have done it all free of charge. Some of them are very successful and have multiple collections published, so it’s good advice.

And that’s what I want to moan about.

Sorry if it seems ungracious to editors, but after one from a haibun magazine spent several emails on suggesting improvements (two major and several smaller ones) the other one suggesting that I should pay £3 just to find out which was their preferred poem, followed by £12 more for a few thoughts, hit a raw nerve.

I know they have costs to cover. I’m in three societies, have subscriptions to five magazine regularly buy single issues of others and buy about half a dozen poetry books a year, so I’m trying to spread a little money around. However, I’m sure that haibun magazines have just the same costs as the ones trying to charge for advice.

My Orange Parker Pen

Poetry and Vegetables

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Despite the arrival of British Summer Time, and the consequent loss of an hour, I woke feeling ready to work, and although I did waste time surfing the web and watching TV, and “resting my eyes”, I have knocked a fair amount of poetry into shape and have sent off four submissions.

I had another rejection yesterday. It was good because it was quick, and because if I intend to be serious about aiming for 100 rejections a year I need more of them. The rejected poems, with a few minor changes, are already out with someone else. They will probably be rejected but it doesn’t matter as I need the numbers, and the second submission needed little work. I feel that each time I edit a work, even if it’s only one word, I am learning how to write better.

I’m sure that I have more than this to write but I can’t remember it. In truth the stuff I forget generally isn’t that important, and would make dull reading if I wrote it all down.

We are starting to list the plants we eat in a week – one recommendation is that you should aim for 30 a week. It’s good to have a variety and I have found that shopping online encourages me to buy the same stuff each week – it’s easier to order and easier to plan the menus.

Brace yourself for a boring list.

Mushrooms. Tea. Yes, tea counts. We eat 50/50 bread so it doesn’t really count, though wholemeal would. Julia says that although brown sauce does contain spices (which do count) she is fairly sure it doesn’t count. Nor does the cereal content in black pudding. Ah well, two isn’t a bad start.

We had coffee, which counts, and green tea with mint, which is debatable. Then we had lettuce, rocket, celery, spring onions, green olives, cucumber and tomatoes.

I’m excluding chocolate because it’s full of sugar, and white flour because it’s processed, so I can’t count the crust of the quiche. Ah well . . .

That’s 10, It’s not a bad start. Only 20 more to go.Looking at the list, it shouldn’t be too hard, though it’s a case of remembering to use them. I meant to add nuts and peppers to the salad tonight, but I forgot by the end of the preparation. It’s a bit like the times I forget I’m not supposed to eat fried potatoes – they just seem to slide down. My bad memory is a cause of many of my problems.

Orange Parker Pen – a shameless attempt to get review samples.

More Ups and Downs

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The rate of improvement in my hands has slowed down today – one is almost cured but the other is still hanging on. Tonight is my night for more anti-arthritis drugs so I’m hoping this will help. If not I may hve to ring the specialist next week and see if they can help.

On the poetry front I had another rejection today, but it was from someone I expected to reject it, so it wasn’t a surprise. I am going to mount a concentrated effort to wear him down over the next year.

The shop was quiet all morning, then picked up for the last hour. In the end it was a successful week, but it can be quite wearing on the nerves to wait until the last hour of the last day of the week to achieve this. Someone rang and made an appointment for next week, telling me that he’d avoided Saturday as we were probably too busy. I laughed.

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…

As a result of today’s refusal, I now have three more haibun to send out. I will prod them round a bit to (possibly) improve them and that means I don’t need to write anything else to make this month’s submissions.

I’m feeling a bit like our garden plum tree this month. If you don’t prune properly and thin out the fruit you end up with a tree that only fruits in alternate years, known as a biennial bearer. I’m much the same. I submitted so much last month that I don’t feel like writing at the moment. It’s a pattern I need to address. Part of it is down to my hands, but a lot of it is due to the amount I submitted last month.

This month’s submissions are now all taken care of and I need to start on the poems for March. It’s a reasonably light month, as is April so I’m hoping to relax a bit and build up a depth of material. At one time I was organised enough to send my submissions in the first few days of the month, instead of the last few. The disadvantage is that you wait longer for a reply, but the advantage is that you are generally more relaxed and make better quality submissions.

Soon we will have a new garden

 

Haibun – One Step Beyond

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Moving on from haiku, we have the Haibun. When I started writing Haibun they were simply a mix of prose and one or more haiku. Simple. I have an example of one in a 15-year-old magazine which was approximately six sections of prose broken up by 5/7/5 haiku. It was horrible, yet it fell within the definition of Haibun at the time and the editor of a magazine (admittedly a general magazine) had thought it fit to publish.

Inevitably the Haibun has acquired a few more guidelines since then. They call them guidelines rather than rules, I forgot to mention that in the last post, they call them guidelines, but they are, if you want to be published, definitely rules.

So, prose and a haiku. It used to be so simple . . .

My Orange Parker Pen

You now need to give the title equal weight with the text and haiku. And you need to have a juxtaposition of text and haiku similar to the relationship between the two parts of the haiku. They often refer to “link and shift” at this point. It’s one of those fashionable things that I don’t fully understand. In theory, I grasp it. In practice, I’m not so good. If you don’t have it, you get told that you lack it. If you have too much of it, you get told it you aren’t making sense. Basically I just chuck some words down on a page, select an editor and send it off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I let them sort it out. I just like writing.

Don’t think for one moment that I don’t have an opinion on all this, I just can’t be bothered to argue. The only way to win the argument is to become an editor and I’m far too lazy for that.

My approach is that I like writing the prose section so I write prose sections. I then add some haiku, because you need haiku to make a Haibun. There are arguments to suggest that you don’t actually need a haiku, but that’s a similar argument to the tomatoes argument – we all know tomatoes are a fruit but we all also know you don’t use them in fruit salad. Some things just aren’t worth the effort.

Orange Parker Pen

At this point it all comes down to my attitude to rejection. I have honed my skills to a point where most rejection merely bounces off the hardened shell I have developed over the years. There are lots of words, there are lots of editors. Acceptance is nicer than rejection, but rejection isn’t a bad thing – it’s part of the learning process and it’s only the opinion of one editor on a certain day.

There I am, with my prose and my haiku. I then add a title. It isn’t always a brilliant title, but it’s usually better than the working title I started with. I have a terrible habit of forgetting to change the working title, which is often quite blunt. Some years ago an editor suggested I went with “What the Moon Saw” instead of “Not another Dead Deer Poem”. I agreed , though I still think my working title had certain features that the more sensitive title lacks. Rereading it, I would probably write it slightly differently these days. The haiku, I now see, is lacking in a number of respects. However, every publication is an encouragement to do better, which is what is important.

There are other things to look at. The standard format these days, which seems to be a growing trend, is a couple of hundred words followed by a haiku. It’s also possible to start with a haiku, have one in the middle or have a “braided” haibun where you split the three lines of the haiku up within the prose. It’s not something I’m that keen on. I struggle with haiku as it is and I really don’t need the extra work.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

If you write prose with a structure and a distinct ending (I admit mine sometimes actually have a punchline, which is probably bad) it’s often a good idea to have the haiku first, so the two don’t interfere with each other.

I like to write at least one in every submission that starts and ends with a haiku. That allows the editor to suggest I omit the first one as it doesn’t add to the poem. They are often right, but it is worth doing as it gives them something to do and distracts them from the other faults in the piece.

Two more things then I will finish.

Type of language. Two points of view. Some people think you should use pared down haiku-style language in the prose. Others think you should try to be different to avoid being boring. I’m sure they are both right depending on circumstances.

And for now, I forget the other . . .

Random photo

Sorry, I’m sure the other thing was important, but can’t recall it. It’s now 12 hours after I finished the first draft. This one is slightly more polished, believe it or not.

I forgot to mention, for instance that they seem to have started as travel journals and that the most famous one is by Basho. It has several different names in translation. In English you can get The Spring Journey to the Saxon Shore by David Cobb or Stallion’s Crag by Ken Jones.

That wasn’t, however, what I forgot. That’s still bothering me.

I seem to have veered off the subject of haibun and written about how i write them. Sorry if that leaves you feeling short changed but there are plenty of other articles about if you want all the technical stuff. I like to think, as a man of small education, who took over 60 years to get round to writing the word pedagogical, that it’s my role in life to demystify poetry.

Like TESCO I adopt the pile it high and sell it cheap model. And if you do decide to have a go, remember that the important thing really isn’t the title, the prose, the haiku or the relationship between the whole, it’s the persistence. Write one, send it off, get it rejected, send another. Go on, write a haibun for 2024 and send it to a magazine.

Oh dear, forgot the title . . .

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Sorry, forgot to put a title on Sunday. Just noticed on Tuesday . . .

The second Sunday post, as I left a lot out of the first one.

It’s been quite warm today and I have been more comfortable, though still not very productive. I have failed to find a Christmas present for Julia and I have bought too much stuff on eBay for myself.

Yesterday Julia bought me a new phone case because the current one I have seems to make it easy for me to forget my phone and leave it on the desk at work. I bought one with a pattern reminiscent of The Great Wave off Kanagawa. I thought it would be easier to spot than my old plain black one. It doesn’t. It works like some form of camouflage. Fra from seeing the black block and realising it is my phone, it seems to break up the outline. Even in good lighting at home I sometimes miss it.

I will try to remember to take pictures tomorrow.

She ordered it yesterday and it arrived this morning.  Even I can’t complain about that level of service.n It’s orange and black. You don’t seem to be able to get high-vis on phone covers so this is the next best thing. So far it seems to be working.

I had a rejection letter today, which neatly rounds up ll the current submissions. I haven’t yet started sending out the December submissions. I really do need to get some work done.

And so, as i often do, I drift off to look t suitable material for submissions and end up, n hour later, realising I hve a post to finish.

Thoughts of Spring

Ups and Downs, with a Distinct Lack of Ups

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I’m feeling slightly better because the infection seems to have gone. Unfortunately the other difficulties remain. This is what happens when a doctor doesn’t listen and only treats one of the two problems. As such, I am feeling well enough to make vegetable stew for tea, but would have practical difficulties if I went back to work. I will either have to get an appointment to talk to a doctor tomorrow, or pack a picnic hamper and  go down to A&E again.

With sandwiches, bottled water, books and a pillow I’m sure I can pass a perfectly acceptable day surrounded by impatience and misery. And, in my case, incontinence. Oh what a joy it is to be alive. Sometimes you only appreciate things as they slip away. Of course, if you put the drama to one side, I am 99% sure they will fix it and that I will go back to not appreciating things again. It’s human nature and I am very weak.

To add to the misery, I just had a rejection. It’s from  journal that has published me before, but it’s a guest editor this month. For a moment I did feel quite down, but that’s the infection rather than any sudden sensitivity.

I know how it goes. Guest editor, shiny new toy. When the publication comes out it will, despite the desire to be different, be much the same. Good writers will always get in. I will read the magazine, note the names, nod significantly as I see many of the same old names, then start reading. Some will be great, some good, some will be worse than my rejected submissions. It’s always the way . You can edit things, but you can’t make poets believe that they aren’t good enough to be published. If we were capable of believing that, there would be few poets.

Time, I think, to shrug it off, keep up my fluid intake, and plan tomorrow’s picnic. You know the old saying about lemons and lemonade? This is “When you have fifteen hours, pack a picnic and a good book.”

Robin at Clumber, Nottinghamshire

When in doubt, bung in a Robin.