I submitted a story to a big name Canadian literary journal. I’d previously submitted this piece to another big name Canadian literary journal. The previous submission received no response (it was for a contest and I think it said only winners would be contacted, but that’s still sort of lazy on their part. That’s what list-servers and mass-emails are for). Then, the next time I tried, I got the rejection above, which is a polite rejection I suppose. Having merit is better than Waste of time or Worst. Story. Ever., but better than Having merit is We would like to include your piece in the next issue of our magazine, which is clearly not what I got. Also, suggestions where it might be suitable for publication would have been helpful, but considering that I even got a rejection letter, I should rejoice. I’m tired of how few rejections I get, instead finding out my stuff wasn’t chosen when the next issue of whatever magazine comes out.

The only pieces I get published tend to be the ones I have no emotional attachment to. This unpublished piece, which now I think has been rejected by ten or eleven journals, from paper to online, from established to starting out, from big fish to minnow, I am too emotionally attached to. Some of my pieces get rejected or accepted and neither fazes me. But this one, each time it is rejected, it feels like a personal insult.

It isn’t an easy piece. It takes place in a country most people have never been to. It has foreign words in it. It’s based on child-logic. It moves forwards in strange little bursts. I wrote it for a creative writing course with Aritha van Herk, who, while she praised it, also tempered the praise with words like experimental and difficult. I understand that the route to publication for this piece will not be easy. I also understand that after almost three years, maybe this piece should simply retire. But, at the same time, I’ve linked this piece in my head to being a writer, i.e. if this story gets published, then I will be a real writer.

I don’t want to consign my writing to the It’s never going to happen pile, but I also don’t know how to break the emotional grip it has on me to do whatever it is I need to do to make this story accessible to anyone other than me.

Here it is: [link removed, see this post], my white whale of story-telling.