On (Literary) Rejection

Valentine's Day is upon us, and it got me thinking about rejection. More importantly, it got me thinking about perseverance in the face of rejection.

January 2012 was the first time one of my stories saw the light of day. Since then I've had 13 more stories accepted by different publications. Proud of what I've accomplished, today I want to look back at what it took to get here.

The story of my stories starts long before 2012. I graduated college in 2008, and between applying to different jobs during the beginning of the Great Recession, I fiddled with a few stories and dipped my tow into the submissions game. Over the next three years I racked up about 60 rejections. I don't remember the exact number, but there is one thing I clearly recall about that time: no one liked my stories.

So that sucked.

But I pressed on, writing a little here, submitting a little there. In late 2011 I finally decided to start keeping track of my submissions. Here are the official numbers (plus the 60 guesstimate):

Acceptances: 14      Rejections: 396

3.53% Success Rate

Let's just say that if I were a baseball player, I would have never made past Single-A. But I'm not a baseball player. I'm a writer. And as far as I see it, 3.53% is a pretty good lifetime (so far) average.

So I'm keeping that in mind this Valentine's Day. Cheers.