Small Victories

Small Victories

October 5, 2019, 6:42 pm
Filed under: Rejections | Tags: alternate, Bemis Residency, creative marathon, Djerassi, Julie Harris Playwriting Award, Millay, Newton Literary, rejection, semi-finalist, Small victories, StandBy, waitlist

I am so used to rejections that when I saw the email in my inbox, I thought, “I don’t think I can handle that rejection today.” So it took me a little minute to open it and read it and see that was actually an acknowledgement that the play is moving on to the semi-finals and woot!

Now — semi-finals are not particularly meaningful. It feels a little like I’m running a marathon and someone near the beginning of the route is cheering “You made it” but it’s only mile 5 of a 26 mile race. I haven’t quite MADE it but I am grateful for the acknowledgement and the support and the cheers. Usually when I get to mile 5, someone disqualifies me and I get pulled from the course. More than anything, it’s just so nice to receive good news rather than bad. And in a world with so much rejection, I have learned that I have to really celebrate the small victories as, generally, the big ones never come.

In other words, despite having run multiple marathons, I’ve never made it to the last mile. I get all the sweat, all the strain, all the effort but I never get the medal. And I don’t need a medal but I would like to get to the end of a race one of these days.

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In more actual not bad news, I am now an alternate for the Djerassi Residency. It falls into the category of a small victory — not as good as an actual acceptance, of course — but an encouraging bit of progress. I particularly appreciate where this encouragement is coming from because I did not think I stood a snowball’s chance in hell of getting this residency since it’s a fairly high prestige one. AND — and I did not know this when I applied — it was started (and named for) the guy who invented the birth control pill. I’m pretty tickled by that legacy. It would be pretty cool to go write some feminist theatre in a place created by a guy who did so much to help liberate women.

This is my second wait list this year. The first was for the Millay Colony which I’ve been applying to for years. So a Maybe there felt like a big win as well. I suppose I still MIGHT be able to go — it was for this winter — but I think that ship has probably sailed by now. Anyway — since this year has been a couple of Maybe/Almost, I’m hopeful that next year might become the Year of Yes.

But meanwhile, here are some more rejections:

Bemis and Newtown Rejections

I applied for so many residencies this year — and a lot of them were new ones — so I have ZERO memory of what this Bemis one is. I didn’t get it, of course. But if I had, I’d have had a much clearer idea of what the heck I’d applied for.

My rejection from Newtown Literary is a first in that I don’t think I had every submitted a short story to anything before and literary magazines are pretty far out of my wheelhouse. Submitting short stories has a sort of different flavor than submitting plays and novels. You know that they probably at least read the whole thing. That is, at least, the saving grace. You were rejected on the whole thing not an excerpt or selection.

I have been starting to write more short fiction — not for strategic reasons — just because stories are emerging more often. But it is smart strategically, too. I’m given to understand.

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The Julie Harris Playwriting Award is one of the few remaining paper submissions. And they ask for a full printed play, which no one asks for anymore. Every play I submit to stuff has a collection of files of varying lengths — the 10 page, the 15 page, the 20 page, the 30 page. I don’t really know why digital submissions can’t just ask for the whole play. If they only want to read 15 pages, that’s their business. It would save me a whole lot of trouble to not have to make multiple files for all the plays. But I digress.

The Julie Harris asks for a full printed play. Which is a whole different animal. And, in the end, rather expensive to mail. On top of the submission fee, it ended up costing as much to submit to them as some of the more fee heavy residencies.

But the rejection letter was actual paper, which I always appreciate. I like having an object I can crumble or tear if I want to. I didn’t. I will just file it in the rejection file. But I like knowing I COULD crumble it if I wanted to. And when I get enough of them, maybe I’ll do some rejection papier mache.

*Wondering why I’m telling you about rejections? Read my initial post about this here and my patron’s idea about that here.

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Originally published at http://artiststruggle.wordpress.com on October 5, 2019.