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Transcript
- You know that specific kind of panic that rises in your throat when you hover your mouse over the 'submit' button? It’s not just fear; it’s a quiet, vibrating terror that you’re about to hand someone your soul and watch them toss it in the trash. Grab your bookmark, we’re going deep. I want you to close your eyes for a second. Really close them. Think back to the last time you finished a piece of writing—a poem, a short story, maybe even a letter you never sent. Remember how it felt? That heavy, sweet exhaustion in your arms. The way the words finally stopped moving around in your head and settled into something solid on the page. You read it one more time, then another. You fix a comma here, tweak an adjective there, until the sentence feels less like what you wrote and more like what you are. And then comes the hard part. The part where you have to believe that this thing, which lives inside your ribcage, is worth showing to the world. Specifically, to strangers who hold the power to say yes or no. To literary journals with submission windows that open for exactly ten days a year. To editors who will read your heartbreak while drinking their morning coffee, deciding if it’s good enough to print, good enough to matter. If you’ve ever felt your stomach drop out at that moment, I need you to know something right now: you are not alone. In fact, you are in very good company. Every writer who has ever been published has sat in that exact chair, staring at that exact screen, feeling that exact wave of nausea. We call it rejection sensitivity, but I think it’s something deeper. It’s the fear that our voice doesn’t take up space. That if we speak too loudly, we’ll be told to hush. Let’s turn the page on this one. We need to talk about the people on the other side of that submit button. There is a persistent myth in the writing community that literary editors are these distant, untouchable gods sitting atop ivory towers, wielding red pens like swords. We imagine them as gatekeepers, guarding the temple of literature with strict rules and cold hearts. But I’ve been on both sides of that desk, darling. I’ve owned bookstores, and I’ve worked with small presses. Let me let you in on a secret: they are just people. Tired, overworked, human people. They are reading hundreds of submissions because they love stories, not because they want to destroy them. When an editor says no, it is rarely because they hated your work. It’s often because they had thirty similar pieces on their desk that day, and they could only choose three. Or because the theme didn’t quite align. Or because their own life was falling apart, and they didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to engage with your grief. The 'no' is almost never a verdict on your worth. It’s a logistical reality. Yet, we internalize it as a personal failure. We think, 'I am not talented enough.' No. You are simply not the right fit for this specific slot, in this specific journal, at this specific moment. The universe of publishing is vast, and there is a home for every story. It just might not be the one you submitted to first. Stop letting the illusion of the gatekeeper paralyze you. They aren’t keeping you out. They’re just busy trying to find room for you. Here is the ache, though. The real cost isn’t the rejection letter. It’s the waiting. Have you noticed how submitting can freeze your creative life? You finish a story, and instead of starting the next one, you spend weeks worrying about whether this one will get accepted. You become obsessed with the metrics. You check your email every twelve minutes. You rehearse the acceptance speech before you’ve even heard the word 'yes.' This anxiety steals the joy from the craft. Writing becomes a transaction. You write not because you need to tell the story, but because you need the validation that comes with publication. And that is a dangerous place to live. It makes your art fragile. If your self-worth is tied to a journal’s acceptance rate, you will break. I saw this happen to a brilliant poet friend of mine. She stopped writing entirely after her third batch of rejections. She told me she felt dirty, like she’d been scrubbed raw. She forgot that the act of writing was its own reward. The flow state, the discovery, the clarity—it was all there, hidden behind the door of approval. Don’t let the anxiety of submission steal your voice. Your creativity is not a vending machine where you insert effort and receive applause. It’s a garden. Some days you plant seeds, and some days you just water them. Some days nothing grows, and that’s okay. But you still have to show up to the garden. You still have to tend to it. Even if no one sees the flowers bloom, you are the one who gets to enjoy the scent. Let’s talk about those rejection letters. You know the ones. The form letters. The generic 'we enjoyed reading your submission but...' It feels like a slap in the face. But I want you to try a different perspective. What if the rejection letter is actually proof of your existence? It means you showed up. It means you took the risk. Most people never submit. They keep their stories locked in drawers, safe and unshared. By submitting, you have already won. You have stepped into the arena. Now, consider this: every famous author you admire has a graveyard of rejections. J.K. Rowling was rejected by twelve publishers. Stephen King’s Carrie was tossed into the trash by his mother before he pulled it out. Ray Bradbury was told his stories were 'too derivative.' If you look closely at the trajectory of any successful writer, you will see a pattern. It’s not a straight line up. It’s a zigzag. A messy, chaotic series of nos that eventually lead to a yes. Each no teaches you something. Maybe it’s about pacing. Maybe it’s about character development. Maybe it’s just about resilience. Build a stack of rejections, and treat it like a badge of honor. Tape them to your wall. Let them remind you that you are brave enough to fail. Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of the process. When you stop fearing the no, you start enjoying the yes. And honestly? The yes feels so much sweeter when you’ve earned it through the wait. This brings us to the most important question: why do we seek external validation in the first place? Is it because we don’t trust our own taste? As former bookstore owners, we used to see this constantly. Customers would ask, 'Is this good?' as if goodness was an objective fact, like gravity. But literature is subjective. A story that moves one reader to tears might leave another completely cold. That doesn’t mean the story is bad. It means it didn’t resonate with that person. So, I challenge you to build your own canon. Create a shelf in your mind for your work that doesn’t require a publisher’s stamp to validate it. When you write a piece that makes your heart race, celebrate it. Read it aloud to your cat, your partner, your best friend. Share it on a blog where anyone can read it. Write zines. Start a newsletter. Take control of the narrative. When you remove the pressure of the competitive journal, you might find that your writing becomes freer, lighter, more alive. You stop writing for the editor and start writing for yourself. And ironically, that is often when editors notice. They can smell authenticity. They can sense when a writer is playing it safe versus when a writer is bleeding onto the page. Be risky. Be weird. Be unapologetically you. The world doesn’t need more polished, safe prose. It needs your unique, messy, beautiful voice. Don’t dilute it to fit a template. Keep it raw. Keep it real. So, here is my invitation to you today. Finish that piece you’ve been working on. Not because you think it will get published. But because you owe it to yourself to see it through. Then, send it out. Send it to that journal you’ve been afraid to try. Hit submit. Feel the panic rise, and then feel it pass. Watch what happens. You will survive. And if it gets rejected, you will breathe. And if it gets accepted, you will dance. But either way, you will have moved forward. Writing is a practice, not a destination. It’s a daily commitment to truth-telling. And you are doing better than you think. You are a storyteller. You are a witness. You are a creator. Do not let the anxiety of submission silence you. Let it fuel you. Let it remind you that your words matter, regardless of where they end up. They matter because you wrote them. They matter because they came from you. And that is enough. More than enough. It is everything. So go ahead. Hover your mouse. Click the button. Turn the page. We’re waiting to hear your story. Always. Take care of yourself, writers. I’ll be right here next week, ready to dive into whatever chapter you’re turning to next. Until then, keep writing, keep breathing, and remember: your voice is needed. Bye for now.