Penny Post #24: Rejection

Stephen King did this once.

In 2022, I wrote a book.

Its a seventy-five page long google draft that has been sitting in my drive for over a year now. The seventy-five pages are full of poetic brilliance. Brilliance because this anthology was written while in Spain, where, ironically, my English blossomed.

The seventy-five pages have been seen by select eyes. Pieces of it I’ve read to my inner circle. Pieces of it I’ve shopped around to various creative journals. Pieces of it you’ve seen here. Yet the seventy-five pages, as a collection, as a story, in wholeness, has remained hidden, buried in my google drive. Except for “The Editors” below:

All things considered, these are nice rejections. They are littered with the “we understands,” the “careful considerations,” the “highly subjectives”. Some even make it clear that they read some, if not all, of the seventy-five pages.

“We enjoyed…the way description and a meditative tone of writing about an inanimate object evolved into some beautiful personal reflections”

“There was much to admire in the description you sent”

I’m grateful that some of these obscure capital-E Editors took the time to read my best work. I’m more grateful that some of these obscure capital-E Editors acknowledged the challenge inherent in sharing your craft to be met with an insincere apology. I’m grateful that seventy-five pages of my best writing has been read, if even by strangers whom I’ll never meet. I hope it made them feel something. I hope it moved them in some imperceptible way. Beyond that, I hope that it does not stay hidden in my google drive.

The work that I do here on Substack, among other things, is to build a community, build a loyal readership that the obscure capital-E Editors believe will buy my book and return their investment.

The work that I do here on Substack, among other things, is to share my craft. To weekly conquer the discomfort that comes with sharing work steeped in vulnerability.

The work that I do here on Substack, above all, is to release the restless urge baked inside of me to write. To collect words as if the most beautiful seashells on the beach of our lived experience. To shape language as if play-doh, treasuring the softness & malleability that echoes the call of the voices that live inside my head. And put most simply, to be free.

There’s no telling which of the next obscure capital-E Editors will find promise in my work. There’s no telling when the next obscure capital-E Editors will find promise in my work. There’s no telling if any of the next obscure capital-E Editors will find promise in my work.

But the promise of my work that I seek to uphold is that it will not remain buried in my Google Drive. As evidence of this, enjoy the following, an excerpt from the forthcoming Echoes:

The shore is made up of tiny little holes, so tiny the next wave is sure to make them disappear. Their depth belies their width, as little sea creatures disappear deep within. 

Filled with salt water, wet sand, and indistinguishable creatures, I’m envious of these tiny homes. Makeshift shelters away from the trespassing soles of strangers with an oceanic lullaby as their doorbell. 

Would I be able to bury myself that deep? To crater within a collapsable hole and disappear from the light? Would I willingly bury myself? 

Every couple of feet or so I stumble upon a shell, some broken, some whole. 

I lift the seashell to my ear to try and grasp something of what I’m missing down there. The shell cries sorrowful tears, carrying the echoed whispers of the sea. Near and far, this shell will carry the tears of the sea it has long left behind. 

Yet another thing I envy. 

The ocean is so vast and deep, yet it enlists her shells to carry her tears. 

I want someone to carry mine.

To my readers: thank you for the text messages and the email replies and the comments that assure me my work means something. God, I’m so grateful for every single word you are generous enough to share with me. It makes the emails of rejections disappear in some long-forgotten google drive folder, where my work used to be. Thanks to you, this is where many pennies worth of essays, poetry, and prose turns into gold.

With love,

Kiera