Just for your well being, because I know you wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight without knowing, here is the list of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award Finalists. Give them many congratulations, well wishes, and then go plot how to get yourself on this list sometime.
You’ll notice that the topic of rejection pops up in this blog every so often. Sometimes it’s because I got one myself, or maybe I didn’t, and I’m celebrating this fact. Today, my mentioning of the bane and necessity of the writing life comes from Hannah Bowen’s post (buymeaclue on Live Journal) on what rejections are, aren’t, and why they certainly aren’t worth the emotional weight we give them, nor should they be taken as an opportunity to attack, slander, threaten etc. the person who rejected your story. Here’s what I consider the best quote from it to be:
“A rejection is an answer. To what, you say? To the question that your submission posed: “Would you like to publish this story of mine?” A rejection is an answer in the negative. “Would you like to publish this story of mine?” “No, thanks.” (An acceptance, of course, would be an answer in the positive. But no one writes snarky responses to those.) And that, my friend, is all. That’s what you’re owed. You ask a question. You get an answer. All else is gravy.”
I see that smile.