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Wicked Blue

(8,135 posts)
5. The wait and the silence are agony, aren't they?
Fri Dec 18, 2020, 11:28 AM
Dec 2020

I hope you get some response, feedback, something, soon!

Years ago, when I was unemployed, I wrote a children's fairytale and sent it out to numerous literary agents. This was in the days before self-publishing on the Web became a thing.

Months of utter silence. Only one reply came, a generic postcard saying my work was not suited to what they published. The experience broke my heart, and I've never been able to bring myself to submit anything again. Totally lost my nerve and pretty much stopped writing.

And it's not as though I'm a rookie at writing. I was a newspaper journalist for a long time, and then wrote articles about energy efficiency for small specialized magazines. I was spoiled in a way, because every day I saw my name in a byline, and nearly everything I wrote was published.

So I assumed my story would easily be accepted and published. I was fully aware that some writers submitted their work dozens of times before a publisher accepted it. Silly me.

Please don't let my pessimism discourage you. Writers gotta write. You're a writer, so keep plugging away at it.

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