My First Rejection...YES!

In November of 2008, I submitted a couple articles to Gray's Sporting Journal to try and get them published. I didn't think I had much of a chance, but figured it'd never happen if I didn't at least try. I thought they'd forgotten about me until a couple days ago when I got the following e-mail from them:

Gray’s Sporting Journal

February 25, 2009

Dear Contributor:

Thank you for submitting your work for publication in Gray’s Sporting Journal. We have looked over your manuscript and have decided it does not fit our present needs. Good luck and best wishes on future submissions, and if you have something that you think might fit with our wants, please consider Gray’s again.

Sincerely, Russ Lumpkin
managing editor

About a year ago I read Stephen King's book called "On Writing." He talks about when he began to submit articles and stories to magazines when he was a teenager. He got tons of rejection letters from many different magazines. In fact he says he hung a nail on his wall to which he impaled all the rejection letters he got. Eventually he had so many rejection letters he had to get a bigger nail. He said he used those rejection letters as motivation to keep going and to try even harder.

I think the nail idea is a great one. I'm excited that I get to hammer a big nail in the wall on which I can hang all my rejection letters. It's kind of a fun and constructive way to deal with all the rejection I'm sure to receive. I'm not at all ready to give up. I can't imagine the joy and elation I will one day feel when I get to see one of my articles in a magazine. It's bound to happen, even if I'm 90 when it does.