October Already, and a Rejection with Benefits

Uh oh, it's October already, which means I haven't done no bloggin' for the past 30 days. Tempus fugit, as the old dead white dudes used to say. But it's not like I haven't been writing, or avoiding writing by doing writerly things such as hearing William Gibson read from his new book, Zero History, at the Coolidge Corner Theater (a rather boring reading from a randomly selected chapter, but great Q&A after).

And I forget to mention last post that the end of August I took a one-night Grub Street seminar with Lisa Borders, Creating Complex Characters, that helped me flesh out a character I've been struggling with for literally years now. Lisa is a great instructor if you get the chance to take a class with her, even for those of us who really don't care who's saying what about Jonathan Franzen.

Now, I'm taking 10 Weeks, 10 Stories. Again.

I'll admit that what I'm doing here is, in large part, paying Grub Street to create externally-imposed deadlines to get me to write, which I'm sure says something way too pathetic about myself to think too long about. But I am also taking the class in order to get feedback from a new group of writers, and for the experience of working with a new (to me) instructor, Adrian Van Young. Kudos, so far, to Adrian, although I have to say that many of my fellow students do not seem as... engaged... in the writing or the critiquing to the extent that I've found in other Grub offerings.

And then, there are the rejections, some with benefits, one of note in particular, coming in from August's orgy of submissions (Orgy of Submissions, now there's a title you might have seen from Beeline Books in their heyday. Not to mention Rejections With Benefits).

What's a rejection with benefits you ask? Why, any rejection that comes with a personal note. That is, of course, assuming the personal note isn't something like "NEVER, EVER submit here EVER again. We burned your manuscript and buried the ashes."

I'm talking about rejections like this one, from the Barcelona Review:

"I'm afraid the story didn't quite hit the mark with our reader though she did offer a comment, which I'll pass on for what it's worth: 'This story was going along nicely. I think the author has a gift for dialogue which kept me dialed in. But then the story takes a massive swing and a gun is whipped out and the protagonist is robbed by a girl he picked up on the subway. It's as if the author was going for a big gasping twist, and this twist left me a non-believer.' I wish you the best of luck elsewhere with this one, and welcome you to submit with us again in the future, any time.”

Damn. Thanks for the props on the dialogue, but... but...

Calm down Stephen. Look back at the beginning, and see what you can do to make the robbery 'surprisingly inevitable.' Use the feedback, they took the time and effort to provide it for you.

Thanks, Barcelona Review.

After all, they could have sent a form rejection like this: "Thank you for submitting to The Los Angeles Review. While we have read your work with interest, it does not meet our editorial needs at this time. We appreciate your efforts, and wish you all the best in placing this work elsewhere. We hope you will consider subscribing to our journal. This will help us stay afloat and enable you to more accurately gauge the type of work we publish."

Is it me, or does that last sentence sound both a little begging, and a little condescending, at the same time?

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen