Latest / Story Lovers: Books, Movies, Culture & Great Stories / The Courage to Submit: Overcoming the Anxiety of Literary Rejection | Story Lovers
Transcript
- There is a specific, hollow silence that follows the moment you hit send on your most vulnerable work, and it feels less like sending a letter and more like throwing a message in a bottle into a stormy ocean. I want to tell you about the exact second I realized that rejection wasn’t a verdict on my soul, but just the first page of a much longer story. Grab your bookmark, we’re going deep. We need to talk about that tiny, glowing button. The one that says 'Submit' or 'Send.' It looks so small, doesn't it? Just a few pixels of light on a screen. But for any writer who has ever dared to put their words out into the wild, that button weighs approximately as much as a lead anchor. I remember sitting in my old bookstore, the air thick with the scent of vanilla and decaying paper, staring at an email draft. My hands were shaking. Not a little tremor, but a full-on, rattle-in-the-cupboard shake. I had written something I loved. Something true. And now, I was asking a stranger to judge it. To potentially discard it. That anxiety isn't just nerves; it’s existential dread wrapped in a polite envelope. It’s the fear that if they say no, they aren't just rejecting the essay or the poem, they are rejecting you. And that is a heavy thing to carry. We spend hours, days, weeks polishing those sentences until they shine, only to hand them over to an editor who might glance at them for three seconds before moving on. It feels cruel. It feels unfair. But here is the secret I’ve learned after ten years of chasing this dream: the anxiety you feel is not a sign that you should stop. It is proof that you care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be scared. You would just be typing away in the dark, happy in your isolation. But you aren't. You want to be seen. And being seen is terrifying. Let’s turn the page on this one, shall we? I want to take you back to when I was twenty-four, working behind the counter of that little shop in Portland. A woman came in, looking exhausted. She bought a copy of Woolf, but she wasn't reading it. She was holding it like a shield. When I asked her about it, she whispered that she had been rejected from three journals that week. She said she felt like she had failed English class all over again, even though she had a degree. I looked at her, really looked at her, and I saw the same look I saw in the mirror every morning. The imposter syndrome. The voice that says, 'Who do you think you are?' But here is what I told her then, and what I’m telling you now: rejection is not a failure of talent. It is a mismatch of timing, taste, or fit. I have shelves in my apartment filled with rejection letters. Not the digital ones, but the physical ones. The printed PDFs I kept because they felt like receipts of my bravery. Some of those writers went on to publish bestselling novels. Some of them never published again. The outcome had nothing to do with the quality of the submission and everything to do with the whims of the human on the other side of the desk. They are busy. They are tired. They have read ten thousand pieces that day. Your piece is not bad because they didn't pick it up. It’s just not the key that fits their specific lock today. And that is okay. That is more than okay. That is normal. We live in a culture that worships the instant gratification of the like, the share, the view. We scroll through social media and see the announcements. The shiny badges. 'So honored to be featured in...' But we rarely see the graveyard of drafts that came before. We don’t see the thirty rejections stacked beneath the one acceptance. It creates this illusion that successful writers just glide through life, hitting yes after yes. Let me shatter that illusion for you right now. Every single writer you admire has been told no. Often, they have been told no by people they respect. Often, they have been told no for reasons that made zero sense. I once submitted a short story to a prestigious literary magazine. I loved it. I thought it was my best work. I got a form letter back. Generic. Cold. And inside, I screamed. Not because I was angry at them, but because I was grieving the version of myself that believed I was ready to be known. But grief is part of the process. It’s messy. It’s unpolished. And it’s necessary. When you submit, you are opening a door. Sometimes the door opens. Sometimes it slams in your face. Sometimes it doesn't open at all, but you still get to stand there and breathe. You still get to exist in the space where hope lives. Do not let the fear of the closed door stop you from knocking. Because the act of knocking is where the magic happens. It’s where you prove to yourself that you are willing to risk pain for the sake of connection. That hit me right in the feels, thinking about how we interpret silence. In our daily lives, silence can mean peace. But in the world of submissions, silence often feels like judgment. Two weeks pass. Then a month. Then six months. And you start to wonder if your email went to spam. Or worse, if it was ignored. Ignored. As if your words were too heavy to lift. But here is the truth about literary journals: they are run by humans. Volunteers. Editors with day jobs and children and sick pets. A silence is rarely a rejection. It is usually just... life. Life getting in the way. Life being loud and chaotic and demanding attention elsewhere. So, please, do not personalize the silence. Do not build a narrative in your head that says you are unworthy because you haven't heard back. You are worthy. Period. The delay is not a measure of your value. It is a measure of their capacity. And you cannot control their capacity. You can only control your own response. Can you wait? Can you trust that your work is out there, floating in the ether, waiting for its moment? Or can you send it somewhere else? Move on. Not in defeat, but in forward motion. Treat your submission list like a garden. You plant seeds in different patches of soil. Some grow quickly. Some take years. Some never sprout, and that’s fine. You just move to the next patch. You keep planting. You keep believing in the seed. Because the seed knows what it is. It doesn't need your validation to be a seed. It just needs time and water and light. I want to suggest a practice for you. Start an archive. Not of acceptances, but of courage. Keep a folder on your computer called 'Bravery.' Every time you submit, save the confirmation email. Save the date. Write down one sentence about why you sent it. Why did you choose that journal? What did you hope to find? This turns the submission from a passive act of waiting into an active act of creation. You are curating your journey. You are building a map of where you have been. Years from now, when you are publishing your third book, you will look back at this folder. You will see the names of journals that didn't make sense anymore. You will see the evolution of your voice. You will see how far you have come. And you will realize that each rejection was a stepping stone. It taught you resilience. It taught you discernment. It taught you how to articulate your vision better. This is the transformative power of narrative, my dear listener. Even the stories that don't get published teach us how to tell the next one. They shape us. They carve out spaces in our hearts for empathy, for patience, for strength. So, honor your submissions. Honor the anxiety. It is the price of admission to the club of creators. And it is a price worth paying. Because on the other side of that fear is a community. A global, invisible, whispering network of souls who are also typing, also sending, also hoping. You are not alone in the storm. You are part of the fleet. So, what do you do tomorrow? You write. Of course you do. But you write with a lighter heart. You remind yourself that the goal is not just to be published. The goal is to speak. To add your unique frequency to the noise of the world. If a journal accepts you, wonderful. Celebrate it. Pop the champagne. Drink the wine. But if they don't, do not close the book. Open a new one. Find a new journal. One that feels like a better fit. One whose mission statement resonates with your soul. There are thousands of journals out there. Small, independent, vibrant, alive. They are hungry for new voices. They are desperate for fresh perspectives. They need your messy, unpolished, beautiful truth. Don't let the fear of the big, famous names paralyze you. Start small. Start local. Start with the places that feel like home. Build relationships with editors. Send personal notes. Be human. We crave humanity in literature. We crave the pulse behind the prose. When you submit, you are extending a hand. You are saying, 'Here I am. This is what I see. Does it resonate with you?' That is an invitation, not a plea. Hold your head high. Trust your eyes. Trust your pen. And know that every word you write matters, whether it sees print or not. It matters to you. It matters to the universe. And eventually, it will find its audience. Until then, keep writing. Keep submitting. Keep believing. The story is not over. It is just beginning. Thank you for letting me into your quiet moments. I’ll be right here, turning pages with you, always. Until next time, keep your bookmarks close and your heart open. Goodnight, lovely.