When I was a teenager, back in the 1970s, I had a big poster of the Marx Brothers above my bed (the brothers? eyes would follow you around the room, which was creepy enough that late one night I tore the poster down); quotes from favorite movies (Casablanca, M, The Maltese Falcon, more Marx Brothers) around my bookshelf; and curling old 8x10s of the New York Mets near the door.
Oh, and a wall full of rejection slips over my desk.
I was about eight when I decided I wanted to be a writer, and maybe fourteen when I took that desire public, so to speak, by submitting my work to magazines, newspapers, and even more far-flung destinations. My benchmark, my guide, my Bible: Writer?s Market, a huge tome that listed every possible outlet for my prose. There came a time when I knew the name of the articles editors of everything from The New Yorker to the Old Farmer?s Almanac.
As the results dribbled in?self-addressed stamped envelopes dropping through our mail slot?out would come the Scotch tape and up would go the rejection slip. A form letter, every time, always using roughly the same words: We are sorry to inform you?. Does not suit our present needs?. Best of luck in the future?.?One magazine, possibly?The Atlantic,?said, Please excuse this impersonal form of reply, which I thought sounded especially?personal.
Why was I so proud of my rejection slips? Why I would show them off, instead of burying them in a drawer or tossing them into the trash? Maybe it was because the letters themselves,?with their famous titles at the top, made me feel like I was a real writer. (Someone in those hallowed editorial offices had read my writing, or at least a few sentences of it!)?Or maybe I was just hardening myself to the realities of the writing life, getting ready for a career necessarily filled more with disappointment than glory.
I don?t know.
I never received the rejection slip reproduced above. (It was sent by a film company to a prospective screenwriter in 1920, and I found it online.) But here?s one thing I do know: If I had, I wouldn?t have been crushed. The letter would immediately have gotten pride of place on my Wall of Fame.
And then, unbowed, I would have sat down at my clattery Olympia typewriter and tried again.
Source: http://www.marmadukewritingfactory.com/2012/12/26/the-unpublished-writers-wall-of-fame/
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