Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Editor Whack-a-mole

Rude editorial staff remarks are hard to take. We pour out everything to get noticed (spend days crafting worthy lines, wring our hands together in nervous splendour, treat Email like it is sweet nectar to our humming bird selves) and we not only get rejected, it is nasty. It is crushing. We feel depressed, very. Then we move on.

Well some move on, others switch from sadness to anger. Writers who are susceptible to bouts of rage have difficulty walking away. They've been greatly offended, darn it, and feel something must be said! No one should get away with treating someone like that!

While it is true there is no cause for cruelty, it is also true the lovely Email response you sent will bite you. Editors talk to each other so one very bad piece of correspondence is all it could take for you to be a person editors won't work with. Not only that, but editors also change to different magazines so one place you hope accepts you becomes an automatic rejection; it is a little like playing editor whack-a-mole. Plus, if it somehow gets leaked to readers, you may lose potential fans. One never knows who can end up where and with what knowledge.

Is it really worth chewing your foot off? What if the person reading your insults is some unlucky intern?

Make a note to yourself about not submitting to him/her and submit somewhere else. There are many places waiting for new work. Why move backwards?

1 comment:

  1. I've heard stories of some pretty nasty reject letters. It always shocks me how people can think it's ok to treat other people that way.

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