Memory lane: Circa, 2017. Judson Press sent me a copy of the winter issue of The Secret Place which has one of my devotions in it. Yet, whatever the season, be it winter or summer, I’m pleased my article’s there, winter or summer. But it will be read in the North American winter. Why do I attract the North American winter? Surprise!
Although I wrote the following in 2017 — ‘the Christian writing I started five years ago is complete for this period of my writing and there is nothing new to pursue in terms of Christian articles and those types of writings’ — why did I get published several times in that genre since?
Putting the poem on the back burner was the logical next step. This after desperately searching for a suitable publisher for it, but realizing there isn’t one, yet. Beforehand, he was deciding on finding a publisher for it or place it on his blog. He had at least decided that he would work on finding a publisher for it, and would continue the search at a later date.
“I have two websites I use for information on publishing,” said the fledging writer to her inquisitive hearer. She was ashamed of being a fledging in front of this successful person, but thought that with possibility, possibility should never die and keep her going, until it reached fruition, with the possible becoming more than probable, and turning her notion into something real.
If I was an editor, I wouldn’t want to explain my decision to a writer if I rejected their work. Somehow, I get why editors generally do this. A decision may fit the editor’s criteria for rejecting a piece, but a decision can also be quite subtle and lucid rather than fully defined. There’s just this sense that a piece is not quite right. So, the editor passes on it after due consideration and an explanation should not be forthcoming from a subtle sense of uncertainty over a piece. How could you define it? So, writers should be assured that sometimes there are not explanations for rejecting a piece — the feeling just wasn’t right. Anyone should be able to ascertain this through their own decisions over selecting or rejecting things where, sometimes, the feeling is the basis for the decision and it just didn’t feel right. I know I do.
