... two more rejections, and Not a Review ...
February 12, 1999
5:10 a.m.
More years ago than I want to admit, I went to a Richard Pryor movie. It was him in his prime, doing a stand-up routine that, no matter what you thought of his libral use of profanity, you had to admit was absolutely hilarious. Well . . . at least I thought it was. Part of his routine was about walking through the woods and seeing a snake. There was a ton more to it than that, of course, but I'm going to focus on only the snake bit. Pryor walked across the stage, and at one point noticed the imaginary snake and skipped away from it. A natural reaction, right? Skipping away from that serpent is what pretty much everyone would do. I'm thinking about this today because I am convinced that being a new writer requires the ability to ignore things that other, sane folks would see and quickly step away from. I mean, let's look at it this way. I'm growing nearer to my 20th sale of fiction, all at what I'll generously call professional rates. If I were to look at myself right now from four or five years ago, I would say I was doing okay. However, I'll note that I'm very close to my 400th rejection. Very, very close. Very, very, very ... you get the idea. What is that, something around 4% success. Can you imagine a sane person looking at a 4% success rate, and not stepping away? Yeah, I'll admit the numbers look better when you view them on a yearly basis, but can you imagine a sane person dealing with a 4% success rate over how ever many years, and still coming back for more? Can you imagine a normal person thinking a 4% success rate is doing okay? But I do think I'm okay. I love the Larry Bird quote on the sidebar. I think it describes exactly what a writer has to think every time he puts a story in the envelop and writes the address of a professional magazine on it. Who's going to come in second? This one is going in. There's no snake in this story. And if it comes back? Hey, even Larry Bird got a bad roll on occasion.   I was really excited to see that Mark R. Kelley reviewed this year's "Writers of the Future" in Locus this month. However, my excitement died quickly when I found that the only story he commented on was Brian Wightman's prize winner. It was really quite a strange review, as I would have thought he might at least comment upon the overall qualtiy of the anthology, if not on each tale as most of his reviews do. But, hey, who am I to be a critic of the critic, eh? So, there goes another prime opportunity for a little attention. But I'll just chalk it up to another snake that this writer trod upon, and I'll move on. Be good.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"I just want to know which one of you guys thinks he's going to come in second?" Larry Bird A question to his three-point shootout opponents before the All-Star weekend contest, Feb. 8, 1996. Bird won by hitting 11 in a row. Quotes of the Century. USA Today 2/8/99" |
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