Faycin's Rejection Letter

So as I mentioned in this post, I had submitted a story for consideration in an anthology and the fucker got rejected. Normally it is my policy to obliterate any story that gets rejected but I really struggled about doing it with this one because I really liked this story.

Their form letter went a little bit something like this. For a form letter it was actually pretty friendly. But I'm feeling a bit butt-hurt, so I'm going to snark it, if more lightly than usual. And I'm snarking myself too. So the sourness of the grapes may be somewhat ameliorated. 

First off, and with all sincerity: thank you for sending us "Faycin A Croud's Totally Great and Incredibly Amazing Story"!

As you may have heard, five years ago when we did the original call for stories for Eat Shit and Die 1, we received about 675 stories.  This time around, we received almost THREE TIMES that amount, with 1,958 stories submitted.  Not only were we blown away by how MANY stories we received, but we were also blown away by their raw quality.  The bad news is that the reality we live in insists there's only room for 30 or so stories in the book, and that means there's going to be 1,920 stories that we can't fit into Eat Shit and Die this time around, regardless of how awesome they are.

Unfortunately, yours is one of them.  We regret that "Faycin A Croud's Totally Great and Incredibly Amazing Story" will not be appearing in Eat Shit and Die 2.

Normally this is where an email like this would end, perhaps with a brief thank you for your submission.  But we're serious when we say the sheer quality of the stories we received staggered us.  There's enough excellence, there in our inbox, to put out FIVE really amazing volumes.  And it would be a crime to leave these stories unpublished like that.  Many of the stories that aren't right for the Volume 2 anthology (for a bunch of different reasons: anthology pacing, variety, length, and so on) would fit wonderfully in any hypothetical future collection, or some other kind of ESAD project down the line.

Of course, right now the focus will be on Eat Shit and Die 2: on assembling the book, on getting the stories illustrated, on getting the finished book out intothe world, and in making the whole thing as awesome as we can.  But after that, if all goes well, we'd like to continue doing some really exciting things with these really great stories you've sent us.  And we'll be keeping your story in consideration for whatever those plans might be.

Obviously we can't promise anything, and nobody can predict the future.  But if all goes well, a while down the road, we may be able to send out some more acceptance letters.  There's a chance you could hear from us then.

Even if we're never able to purchase your story and this is the last you hear from us about it,let us say this: thank you.  You created something out of nothing,brought a new narrative into the universe, and shared it with us. Reading these stories has been a humbling and inspiring experience. Thank you, once more, for being a part of it.

So yeah, they're not douchebags. They actually seem like pretty decent people. And I'm not great at following rules, so I probably didn't fit the criteria as well as people who can follow rules might. I didn't destroy the story, which is not my usual m.o. Normally stories that aren't accepted get obliterated immediately. I am very unforgiving of myself and subpar work on my own part. It's like they don't deserve to take up space on my hard drive, or even on the remote server where I back my work up. 

I'm much more forgiving of other people--I try to encourage them, even. But with me I am absolutely vicious. Nothing but the best will do--ever. 

I'm constantly letting myself down.

Hopefully the dachshund rescue guy will call soon. I'd rather get this painful process with the relinquishing the dogs over and done ASAP. Plus I still need to get some sleep.

~Faycin~

(Not the next Great American Author)

In a Nutshell

Yeah, I'm not. I'm full well aware of that. Kiss this.

I'm feeling really sensitive and easily wounded right now. Well, more than usual.

I'm letting the guy from the dachshund rescue take my dogs tomorrow. They've been with me for 9 years and I've never been a good owner. I resonate with cats. Dogs are like 2 year olds that never grow up. Cats are assholes that want their own way and are affectionate when they want to be if they like you. I get cats.

I feel really, really badly about taking the dogs to the rescue. But I am not around for long periods of time sometimes. They should be taken out 3-4 times a day. I often don't even feel like taking them out once. I didn't train them well because I'd never had dogs before and didn't know what I was doing. They're nice dogs, but they're not good dogs. However, I'm sure that someone who knows what they're doing will do fine with them.

Also, it squicks me out that whenever I let them out of their enclosure (yeah...that's not good either) they run straight for the cat box for a "treat" or the trash can to chew on my used sanitary pads.

Yeah--dogs are gross. And I can't get around that. I like dogs the same way I like small children. I like them better when they're someone else's and I can deal with them for a couple hours and then send them home! I have all the sympathy in the world for the plights of dogs and small children. But I can't deal with them living with me!

One of my stories got rejected today. That pissed me off because I thought it was a really cool and interesting story. My M.O. has always been to destroy any story that gets rejected. But I like this one a lot so I'm really struggling with this decision.

So I'm feeling really unloved and butt-hurt right now. And as a large person, I do not need fucking "you need to be thin or you are ugly and worthless" ads coming on right now every two seconds to remind me that I'm ugly and worthless.

You know, I know that fat does not equate with ugly, nor does it even equate with unhealthy. People get the diseases of AGING at about the same rate, regardless of whether they are fat or thin. The difference that I can determine is that very thin people are more prone to osteoporosis while very heavy people are more prone to arthritis in the lower extremities at early ages. That's it. Now, people who literally weigh a ton and can't get out of the house because they can't even move, that's a different story. Something really bad has happened there, just like something really bad has happened in a case of anorexia. Does shaming these people help? Never has, never will.

But as an average, every day, run of the mill fat person, I can tell you that die-ts don't work and the die-t industry exists because die-ts don't work but they've convinced us all that it's our fault that die-ts don't work. Geddit?

That being said, I'm running late so I'm going to hit the choke and puke on my way to work and then do the nightly grind with no hope of better things in sight, and the memory of my father dying at the end of November last year in my mind as I prepare never to see these dogs that I let down again.

Yeah.

Fuck my life.

Words That Hurt Me

MyNiceProfile.com

Following the prompt for the Writers Workshop, here are the words that hurt me.


What they all boil down to are you're no good, don't belong, are worthless.


"I don't want you around any more."
"I don't love you any more."
"You're weird (not in a good way.)"

The fact that I still can't get over the cruel, passive-aggressive behavior of a person I considered my friend for more than five years still haunts me. Their last words to me before refusing to ever communicate with me again were "who cares? I have real problems."

Because, I guess that having a dying father and living with suicide ideation and fighting with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and OCD aren't real problems. And having a house with no running water and damage from a blown water heater and mold growing under the floor weren't real problems. Nope, those are fake problems apparently.

So, I guess I am torn because I really just want to say "what a useless idiot" and have done with it.

But since I thought this person was my friend and I cared about them (although they evidently didn't give a damn about anyone but themselves)

Those words will always hurt me.

Decent Mood

I am pleased to be in a decent mood tonight. As someone with the shitty disease that is bipolar disorder, I always find myself wondering which of my moods actually belongs to me, and which is part and parcel of this fucking disease. For the moment, no matter. Tempest Le Trope rides again (my semi-satirical fantasy romance novelist incarnation) and you can check out her Twitter novel as it forms at either http://tempestletrope.typepad.com or http://torridtempest.blogspot.com

It does make a difference to me when people comment. It makes me feel like someone hears what I'm saying. Of course I'm going to write it anyway, regardless, but unfortunately the soul (at least this soul) enjoys feeding on a bit of praise now and then. What I'm trying to say in my roundabout way is THANK YOU to those of you who have left comments, you are the best of the best!

Of course this means that all who have left comments recently are polite and decent people. I appreciate that too. I'd be seething if some jackwagon had something stupid and mean-spirited to dump on me. It's not that people have to agree with me wholesale, just that if they don't they ought to be civil in their disagreement!

Again, thank you, and whatever the reason for the mental upsweep, I'll ride the wave!

Hang ten!

Faycin, wishing she could be a beach bum. Unfortunately the last time I tried to lounge by the seashore, Greenpeace came along and threw me into the ocean!