I actually got my tenth rejection on Monday, but it’s been a very long week. (Well, tenth since I’ve started tracking.) Still, this means I’ve actually completed my second centiBrad. This is a measure I like to track, since Bradbury apparently got hundreds of rejections before he got his first acceptance.
(Please note that I said apparently: while he’s spoken of writing a thousand dreadful stories and getting them rejected, I’m not sure if that’s literal. After a discussion in which someone told me that they’d rather believe “thousands of fans” who attributed a Le Guin quote to Tolkein than attribute it correctly[1], I am particularly hoping to avoid presenting vague anecdote as solid fact.)
Anyway! Therefore, five rejections is a hundredth of what Bradbury had (probably at least) gotten; five rejections is a centiBrad.
It’s not fun, or anything. But rejections happen (acceptance theoretically might happen, but rejections definitely happen), so since they’re there, it’s a metric to track them with. That’s something.
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[1] Most people, I’ve found, will be cheerily polite when you mention that a quote’s been misattributed. And then one person will fire back with “Well have you considered that the author you mentioned might have used plagiarism? I’ve never heard of them.” Oy.
If they haven’t even heard of Le Guin, then I might question a thread or two of their soul. There is lit beyond movie adaptation.
Bradbury, who is a literary love of mine, said that it was not until he wrote The Lake that he became. He knew it was special.
Incase you have not read it (yah right) http://www.lghs.net/ourpages/auto/2013/3/1/55741734/The%20Lake.pdf