Counting Failure
Daily writing prompt
What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.
In all my reading, I kept coming across the same ratio, ten to one (10:1). Sometimes it was stated differently, but the math always worked out the same. For every ten rejections, you get one acceptance. Or: for every ten failures, you get one success.
This is why I created the #100RejectionsChallenge. The idea being that if I (or you or anybody) can submit to 100 publications, we will get 90 rejections, and 10 acceptances.
I want those ten acceptances, those ten publications.
There are probably several ways to go about this, but I’ve chosen to send one piece to one publisher at a time (non-simultaneous submission). It’s easier for me to track, it keeps the piece in front of me every few weeks so I can tweak it before sending it off again, and it just feels right. Asking someone to give me their time and then telling them I’ve already published the piece somewhere else doesn’t sit right with me.
Currently I have 35 pieces out for submissions. I’ve collected eight (8) rejections and one (1) acceptance. I started submitting pieces on June 4th and it is currently October 5th. So four months of submitting has only landed me nine responses so far. And while there are five publications I ought to hear back from this month, it is clearly a slow process.
For many, eight rejections with only one accepting is failure. For me, it’s a massive win. I got the acceptance when I only have five rejections (or something like that) so I thought I was beating the 10:1 ratio big time. I had a moment where I envisioned that I was simply a better writer than every other writer under the sun, and my goodness how terrifying!
Then a few more rejections flowed in and I was so relieved. Isn’t that odd?
The only thing we’re guaranteed of failing is everything we don’t try.
The opportunity to chase your dreams is a privilege, it’s a gift, and it’s a challenge.
I hope you take it up.
Writing Prompt Winner: Heather Saint
September 2023: Heather Saint
“Our Secret Energy Impelled Her”
Sitting, watching her walk toward us, we waited. What was she going to do this time? So many times in the past she had broken the rules, shattered dreams, and yet we still allowed her to be. Just be. Was today the day we finally stood our ground and took back that which she had stolen? No, not stolen. We gave freely under the guise of “safety for the others”. Maybe today, together we can regain what we gave away. Maybe our combined energy and strength of purpose would finally unite us against her. Maybe today is the day. Will we stand or will we crumble and comply yet again?
Heather Saint is a world traveled native Montanan, settling into retirement in NW Montana
Eep
My library has offered to give me a window display space as part of my Montana Arts Council Montana Artrepreneur Program Certification requirement…in exchange for giving a talk about writing…eep!
So me, myself, and I will be giving a presentation and holding a discussion on writing at my local library next month…eep!
I’ve got my slide deck ready and my notes printed to make sure I don’t skip anything. I’ve got a handout ready to go and a note to remind myself to bring pens with me in case anyone actually shows up and wants to do the five-minute timed writing prompt. I’ve secured an awesome publication opportunity for the people who DO attend and want to write. I’ve ordered bookmarks to give away and I have my business cards. And I’ve started the process of putting it out there to my community online and on my website.
I figure this is all good training…right? For when my book comes out and I have to *gulp* go to an event. Or if I end up self-publishing and need to do all the things…eep!
I’m trying really hard to pretend I’m okay with all of this while my little introverted heart thumps in my throat and my stomach clenches and my Fitbit congratulates me on another great workout even though I haven’t done a thing.
It’ll be fine…I know it’ll be fine…and it’s a month away…it’s fine…I’m fine.
Anyhow, if you happen to be in Montana on October 25, 2023 and want to meet me, I’ll be at the Thompson Falls Public Library at 1:00pm sweating through my shirt. Come say hi! Check out the event on Facebook.
September #100RejectionsChallenge Update
Learning to Can Eludes Me
At one point I had the full home canning kit. The one everyone seems to have at some point in their life, the one that clutters the thrift store shelves for years until it comes back around to being in vogue, or until a pandemic hits. Needless to say, my kit was in pristine condition. All the pieces had been washed, dried, and loving put away for future use. A future which never came, at least, not for me. Not then.
We’ve been living in this new-to-us house for over two years now. There is no home canning set in the cabinets. I was gifted with a bounty of apples and pears though, wondering whatever to do with them all. Wishing that canning kit was in the cabinets while also recognizing it was perhaps not quite the time to start learning, with the fruit already waiting to be used.
A quick Google search said all I needed for pear sauce (think applesauce with pears) was a pot, a splash of lemon juice, and a blender or mixer; three things I happen to have on hand. And so I learned to make pear sauce. All was poured into quart sized freezer bags and frozen. All was cleaned up and put away. All took much longer than I’d have anticipated and tasted much better than anything I’ve ever tasted before.
Perhaps next year, I’ll be ready to can rather than bag. Perhaps.
Wim Hof in My Shower
This idea of soaking in an ice bath, of taking a Polar Plunge, of standing in a cold shower for as long as you can stand it has me obsessed. I read every book I can find on Wim Hof, a fascinating man who believed we all ought to be naked and freezing to enjoy our best health (yes, I’m condensing rather brutally and with a touch of snark). Outwardly, I let the obsession go, inwardly, I’m trying to convince myself to take a cold shower.
It comes up again when Brandon Carter writes a blog about cold showers, a blog I can’t find now but that may still exist in the internet ether. And because I’m a great believer in the Universe putting before you what you need, I pay attention. Clearly, there’s something to this cold shower thing I’m supposed to be tuning in to.
When I begin my new exercise routine of using an elliptical every day for thirty minutes, I come off the machine bright red in the face, soaked in sweat, and so hot. All the hormones of a forty-four year old woman who’s done nothing but sit in front of a computer and type for four months are clashing inside me and producing some alarming results.
I’ll never stop sweating, I imagine, and it becomes the perfect opportunity to take a cold shower. I start the water at a lukewarm temp that will actually entice me in rather than keep me out. I slowly turn the knob cooler as I finish washing hair, then a touch cooler as I finish soaping up, a touch cooler for a final rinse.
It’s not an ice bath, it’s not Wim Hof in my shower, but I’m getting there. And it’s not as horrific as I’d imagined, although I am still waiting for all those fabulous health benefits to become obvious.
A Writing Playlist
This morning I woke with Fox on the Run playing in my head. Yesterday it was an Indigo Girls song. And while I always wake with a song in my head from my playlist, it’s not always a song I’ve heard recently, and usually I can’t move on with my day until I’ve listened to the song to help get it out of my head. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.
It started with Paul Simon songs, usually lyrics, “still crazy after all these years.” Sometimes it would be nothing more than a tune, a song without words playing in my mind like a curse, like tinnitus to a tune. For some reason in high school and in college it was often a classical piece, something famous by Mozart. Something everyone would recognize if they heard it, but not something I necessarily listened to.
Writers ask each other about their playlists, share their playlists, encourage one another to keep a playlist to help them get into their writing zone. I haven’t tried it, which shocks me – I love music! Perhaps it’s partly because I do the majority of my writing on the couch, in the dark, at 4:45am while the rest of the family is asleep? True there are ear buds, but then I wouldn’t hear if one of the kids cries out for mama, or the dogs get restless and need to be let out, or if the coyotes are hunting and I need to make sure the dogs are in.
Still, I’m considering making a playlist for the other parts of the day when I find myself in front of the computer needing to edit, needing to write, needing to submit. And I wonder what would be on that playlist. What songs could I listen to that would stay in the background and not take over my writing groove when I’m in one, that may even allow me to go deeper into it?
What songs are on your playlist?
Not a Runner
I saw an ad for a Wonder Woman run with a puffy blue jacket the participants get for running. It had the WW logo on it and I wanted it. “I could be a runner!” I thought to myself, before remembering that I am not a runner.
I’ve tried running multiple times in my life, always for fitness, never for pleasure. Still, I hold out for the experience of the runner’s high. All I ever get is a red face, a lot of sweat, sore shins. The image of myself as a runner persists, somehow.
The first time I gave up running was right after my brother had seen me running and told me he never knew I was a runner. Me neither, cause I’m not, I thought to myself. What I said out loud was something like, “why not? Anyone can run.” He took up running shortly after and just as quickly stopped. Our genetics bringing us closer than ever, two people who love an idea of ourselves but finally accept who we are.
It seems I only ever discover myself through what I am not. I am not a runner. I am not a veterinarian, a slam performance poet, or a finance person. I am not a Californian.
Perhaps I am a memoirist. That is my current attempt. May we always be attempting to discover who we are, even if it’s by discovering who we are not.
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