Irony

I've been working hard on a piece for the past two months.  It is the piece I used to get into Hindman, and it was work-shopped in my class with Gwyn Rubio.  I also had an intense one on one with Gwyn where we went page by page through the story and discussed whether pretty much everything was working--or not. 

Since coming home from Hindman I have continued to work on the story using the comments from the workshop and my time with Gwyn.  I've also sent it out to two friends from Hindman who were not a part of my class and gotten suggestions back from them.  Working on this story has given me the new habit of hitting B&N every Saturday night, just so I have some private writing time.

So, yesterday was the deadline to submit the story to a contest I've had my eye on for months.  All three editors of the lit mag that holds the contest work/attend Hindman every year, and two of them asked me if I was planning to submit.  Anyone who knows me shouldn't be surprised that I was completing my final edits last night directly before the midnight deadline. 

I was only making small changes, switching 'surround' for 'around', clarifying a pronoun, cutting an unnecessary adverb/adjective, but every time I read through the story last night I found one more thing I just knew could be better.  I realized after my seventh time in one evening I was making myself crazy.  I decided I had worked hard on the story, and I just needed to let it go.

So, I logged on to my email to complete the submission and what do you think was waiting for me in my inbox?  A rejection from another lit mag.

I truly believe I have been very good about this whole submission process.  I check my email for submission responses only three times a day: when I wake up, when I get home from work, and right before I go to bed.  I don't obsess over the response or lack thereof during other parts of my life.  I check, and I move on.

I also believe I'm pretty good with rejection.  Yeah, it hurts, but it's not an agonizing hurt that makes me want to give up.  It's more like the burn of a good workout.  It's uncomfortable, but lets me know I am that much closer if I just push on.  I don't enjoy it, but don't fret unnecessarily either.

However, I'm really starting to resent the ironic timing of these things.  I received my first two on the same day which just so happened to be my first day back to school.  Then, just when I'm trying to convince myself that I am good enough to submit to another magazine, playing a serious game of "fake it 'til you make it" with my confidence, I force myself to log in and submit, and what is staring me in the face but another rejection.  I had already checked the email twice yesterday, but did it arrive before school?  After school?  No.  It waited until I was trying to push myself past feelings of self doubt and BAM there it was waiting to make the game a little harder.  If that's not irony, then I don't know what is.