The Link between Domestic Chores + Manuscript Submissions

Yesterday i was in this crazy mood so i:

1. changed the lightbulbs in the bathroom
2. re-organized the strange pile of recycling bags
3. recharged LB's iPod so she'd have tunes for our run
4. washed all the dishes
5. prepped 13 new manuscripts (e.g. fiction and CNF)
6. made the bed
7. sent off my 13 new manuscripts to 13 journals, including Elle, Esquire, The Yale Review, Indiana Review, 4th Genre, Michigan Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Epoch & Black Warrior Review, among others

At the post office, the clerk and i started chatting and she wanted to read some of my fiction, which was really flattering, so i told her to look up my STAND piece and my WRITERS POST JOURNAL piece, even though they won't be ready forever. it was so nice.

Today, par contre, i finally did something i've wanted to do since graduation in may. i submitted my novel BLANK to mcsweeney's press. i'm sure it will take them forever to get back to me, but as long as they read the whole thing--as if, kid--i'm cool with that. so now my novel is under editorial and agent consideration at simon & schuster, grand central and mcsweeney's, and yo, i couldn't be happier!

Sidenote: sometimes i can be random. i was just about to shave and take a shower, and then, the next thing i know, i'm composing a cover letter to the book submissions editor at mcsweeney's and writing this blog in my boxer shorts. what is going on with my mind?

I Hate Rejections!

Well, it's really my own fault. i submit like crazy and so of course i get rejected like crazy, but usually, i get a few rejections letters, oh, now and then, and then i have time to build up hope, and then another rejection letter, but who cares, it's just one little guy, and then i submit again, and then a few more rejections. but i guess this week is like the week of rejections! cuz i got four more rejections today, all of them online. that's almost 10 rejections in 72 hours. what's up with that?

this sucks.

recent rejections from:

1. the miranda literary review (but a good one: your lyrical essay was creative and really interesting yadda yadda).
2. 6 little things (a nice one: fantastic imagery)
3. vestal review (your shit's too tight for our crappy review--okay, they didn't write that, i'm just fantasizing, that's all).
4. brick Magazine. (again, a good rejection: we really enjoyed reading your essay, but we just don't feel like it fits with our mag yadda yadda).

i realize and acknowledge that these rejections were, for the most part, good rejections. but on somedays, LIKE TODAY, i don't want any goddamn moral victories. i want publications, i want bragging rights, i want a longer italicized scction of my cover letter, i want name recognition, i want journal respect, i want all those stupid things i despise in the male writer's ego and i'm not going to hate myself for it, that's just how i feel today. i've been reading these journals. and admittedly, the stories in them are really good, but my shit is just as good, sometimes i think it's better. i'm sorry if that's conceited, maybe i need this unjustified scrap of writerly delusion to keep writing, but i feel like it's true.

anyway, my strategy, as always, is to submit like crazy to more journals. it's redemption time baby. sure, i'll get more rejections, but as long as the bombers are in the air, i feel like i've got as good a chance as anyone. hit me up kid.

i'm submitting to:

9th letter
sentence journal
mid-american review (x 4 flash fiction--holla!)
hayden's ferry review
bellingham review
new orleans review
alaska quarterly (since they gave me a decent rejection)
bryant literary review
epoch
harper's
tri-quarterly
santa monica review

nothing would thrill and satisfy me more than to publish the very things william rejected, and prove my publishability. i'm using this as motivation. and nothing would heal my crappy mindset than to get my first big break from a kick-ass li journal. i just don't know how long it takes for emerging writers to do this without a literary agent.

god i'd love to know what's in lynn nesbit's mind these days. if you're good at channeling other people's thoughts lynn nesbit, you really want to make jackson bliss one of your clients, he's hella talented and his work ethic is fucking sick, AND he loves:

old people, animals, children, his mom, his brother, writers (who don't reject him literary journals), japanese food, traveling, kindness, hugs, making out, thai food, a mid-grip handshake, a soy chocolate banana shake, birds, moms who love their kidz, anime.

oh well, it's worth a shot.

anyway, i'll see some of you tonight at the sparks prize reading and valerie's par-TAY, by which time i should be feeling much much better.

peace, joy, health, love to youz,

we out,

--j2b

Delilah in Collision published in the Pittsburgh Quarterly

Recent rejections from:

kenyon review
epoch

Recent submissions to:

danforth review
new england review
north american review
nimrod
writer advice

Recent publication at:

the pittsburgh quarterly (the site looks great. i'm so happy about that).

recent--as in, just two minutes ago--acceptance at:

writer advice. it's an edited version of my response, but hey, i'll take it.