When an unpublished writer has been rejected enough, I suppose it's inevitable that he will develop a complex. In its early stages, the pursuit of publication is an endless quest for validation. When you've spent years submitting stories to no avail, you begin to pray that you're not of those writers - the kind who might as well give up and spend his time building model ships instead.
So when that first acceptance comes, you're grateful. Sure, you're excited and chuffed as well, but 'grateful' is at the top of the list. I imagine it's how a 30-year-old virgin feels when a girl finally invites him into her bedroom. It's as much a relief as anything else.
I realised the other day that I had never quite got myself out of that grateful mindset. I don't want to go into specifics (out of respect for those involved), but what happened was this. I had a story that I thought was one of the best I'd ever written and it was accepted at the first market I sent it to. When I saw the finished product, however, I was disappointed. The layout was amateurish, promotion was non-existent and payment was likewise. The story I loved so much and had put so much work into would be lucky to see a hundred pairs of eyeballs.
For years, I had been shooting too low. I had been hunting for the quick gratuity, the fast validation, another piece of evidence that I was a real writer. In doing so, I had sold myself and my stories short. In the case of the story mentioned above, I had taken something with the potential to net me a professional sale and pissed it away on a lame small-press e-publication.
Well, never again. To continue the analogy above, I'm not going to be the guy who goes home with the fat, drunk girl because he's afraid he'll never have sex again. If I think a story is good enough to warrant it, I'm going to send it to pro-paying markets only. If that means it is in circulation for five years, so be it. No more instant but ultimately ephemeral gratification. I want to be proud of the places my stories call home.
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