E.S. Raye

Rejection. It’s something every writer must learn how to handle if they want to be published. But that doesn’t make it any easier, especially for those of us who have not yet gotten that all-important acceptance letter.

I’ve not been at this game for very long yet. I only sent out my first short story – a sci-fi tribute to the classic film The Maltese Falcon titled “The Stuff Legends are Made of” – in November of 2021. That’s a little less than two years ago from the time I write this.

Two years. Two years, seven stories, one novel, thirty-seven total submissions, and thirty rejections. Some of which came in the form of no reply at all; something that is at the same time easier and harder than an actual rejection letter.

When the rejections get me down, I always think of Ray Bradbury:

[S]tarting when I was fifteen I began to send short stories to magazines like Esquire, and they, very promptly, sent them back two days before they got them! I have several walls in several rooms of my house covered with the snowstorm of rejections, but they didn’t realize what a strong person I was; I persevered and wrote a thousand more dreadful short stories, which were rejected in turn. Then, during the late forties, I actually began to sell short stories and accomplished some sort of deliverance from snowstorms in my fourth decade. But even today, my latest books of short stories contain at least seven stories that were rejected by every magazine in the United States and also in Sweden! So, dear Snoopy, take heart from this. The blizzard doesn’t last forever; it just seems so.

Ray Bradbury, in Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life

“The blizzard doesn’t last forever…” And that, I think more than anything else, is why I’m here, writing this blog and making this website. It’s my own little shelter against the storm. Magazines, anthologies, publishers, and agents may not have liked what I have shown them so far, but I have more to show, and more people yet to show it to.

So, I’m going to keep writing, and I’m going to try my best to share the journey here, with you. If you’re also an aspiring writer, reader, or just someone who wants to see how the author sausage is made, I invite you to join me on the epic quest to conquer a mountain of rejections.