I was going to to revise and republish a few posts from my old blog, but it seems that I have unwittingly delted them permently. The moral is either 1) read your user agreement carefully, or 2) it’s better having your trash hauled away than cluttering your blog.
Either one suits me fine. I had better just find another means of procrastination.
NOTE: This is an unrevised entry from my old Blog May 21st, 2016
The British press is in the habit of referring to the years 2000-2009 A.D. as “The Naughties,” but, I am ashamed to say, my own behavior contributed very little to that particular title.
NOTE: this was first published on my old blog June 5th, 2016
Back in ’09 I submitted a story to a fancy-pants magazine. I remember how angry and frustrated I was when the story was rejected. I fumed about it for days.
The other day I was looking for another old email and found the rejection, which ended “I appreciate your interest in {name of magazine} and hope that you will keep me in mind for future submissions.”
The email was actually not a form-letter but a nice little note mentioning some of the peculiarities of what I had written. It was clearly an encouragement to submit more, although I never did. I may never have read it in its entirety till now. Now the venerable old rag, like many a venerable old rag is out of business and I have wasted the opportunity. At another time, I could have been excused on the foolishness of my youth, but I was 31.
I missed out on 9¢ a word, a big audience, and being published in a legendary magazine, all because I couldn’t get passed the “I’m sorry” that began the message. I hear people advise each other to “not take rejection personally,” but I’m not sure that many people are better at it than I am.
So today I will give you no advice except to hope that we all become a little more rational as we get older.
Thomas Olivieri 