[Help] How do I keep from being a crank?
A little over a year ago, as a first-time expectant father and a newly sober alkie, I turned poet in earnest. I have been published in school literary journals (two), and I recently received my first two rejection slips (or, as a writer friend insists on calling them, "non-acceptance slips"). How do I tell when a poem is ready to submit to a journal? How do I keep from becoming delusional about my abilities and turning into a crank? What if my poetry is "no good"?
Posted Oct 16, 2014, 7:50 AM UTC
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Get feedback. Post something. I'll give you an honest opinion.
I'm concerned about losing the ability to publish, by publishing to reddit. I got some very positive feedback from a writers' group, and some positive feedback from a poet friend.
Unfortunately, as writers we never get to know until we are published or get a tiered rejection. I've got 31 rejections on the poetry I've submitted. Of those 31 rejections, 2 of them have been "tiered" rejections, meaning the literary journal in some way indicated they'd like to see something else from me in the future. I don't know if 2 tiered rejections out of 31 is "good" or "bad" but it is at least something. I'm the same way with the fiction and creative non-fiction stories I write and submit. Some of them do get more tiered rejections than others. One has 21% tiered rate, vs the one that has a 7% tiered rejection rate, which I may stop submitting since it doesn't do as well as the others.