Rejection 217
Peter Slapnicher
About a year ago, I did an interview, and I think I told Ben Tanzer that Ninth Letter was one place that I wanted to have work some day and it felt like it was possible. Still nothing. I do continue admiring them, but I am also exponentially less anxious about getting work into certain places. Ninth Letter just rejected another story of mine.
I am ready to admit it: I was obsessed for a while there with getting a ton of work out there. I feel I have calmed down a bit. I don't have an aneurysm if I can't check my email every hour. I am taking more time for writing and less for submitting. I started a new job that involves more writing and don't feel it is adversely effecting my own writing time, though trying to work a day and a half at the bookstore, in addition to the new full-time job, is taxing my free-time too much right now. I've been sewing more and reading a bit unsteadily for my tastes. I stopped bending over backwards to get to every reading, and allowing myself to stay home to write or cook if that's what I felt like. At first I got nervous that I was getting lazy, and then I realized that this is a more sustainable pace for me. This is just an update. I'm always comforted when someone outlines their practice for me, even if it's nothing like my own, because it's become clear that people work in different ways. Mine seems to be an ever-morphing schedule. Hope you are all well. If you want to tell me about your current writing life in the comments below, I'd love to listen.