“The rejection slip is very hard to take on an empty stomach. There were times when I’d sit at that old wooden table and read one of those cold slips that had been attached to a story I had loved and worked on very hard and believed in, and I couldn’t help crying.”
– Ernest Hemingway
M.C. Tuggle, Writer 
The process is less …romantic now I feel. We get a copy paste email and thats about it. On the plus side, I cant imagine how much money I have saved on postage.
LikeLike
Do you remember when we had to include a SASE with our submission?
Yeah, the internet made it easier to submit our work, but slushpile editors are now swamped. So the process still takes months.
And a cut-and-past rejection hurts as much as a paper one.
LikeLike
Well if Hemingway felt that way, it’s is good enough for me
LikeLike
I knew a former editor at a literary magazine who told me that they got so many short story submissions that they had to find any reason they could to reject a story. After over a hundred rejections (going back to the days when you had to mail them with an SASE), I decided to utilize the internet and put my stories online. May not be as prestigious as seeing your work in actual print, but at least my stories are finally getting read. One reader was even kind enough to publish one of my short stage plays in his literary magazine. 🙂
LikeLike
Robert Kirkendall,
There aren’t that many of us who were around in the old days of SASE.
I remember one Writer’s Digest article instructing would-be authors how critical the SASE was. The editor must realize that the ms you sent is a precious thing, and MUST be mailed in a neat, protective package.
And you offer good advice. The ‘net has opened up new possibilities to aspiring writers.
LikeLiked by 1 person