Be an editor for an hour! Or at least play one in your own home.

I frequent a website called FreeMusicArchive.org. It’s all free and legal; the artists post their songs under a creative commons license for people to download. Some biggish names are there (Son Volt, Deadstring Brothers, Rodrigo y Gabriela)—mostly live tracks recorded at the radio stations that support FMA—but many are unknowns. Tens of thousands of songs, yours within seconds over the internet. We’ve come a long way from holding a tape recorder to the radio, haven’t we?

Anyway, I’d like you all to humor me in a fun exercise. Go to FreeMusicArchive.org. On the right-hand side is a box labeled “Recently Added Highlights.” Next to each track is a plus sign that adds the song to an online music player (you might have to unblock popups). Don’t play directly on the page; I’m going somewhere with this. Add the first five tracks to the FMA player. Hit “pause” before the first track plays (going somewhere with this . . .). Just below that box is another labeled “Most Interesting Highlights.” Add the first five of these tracks. Next, go to the “Browse by Genre” area, and select three genres of your choice. Add one track from each of the first five artists in each genre. You should now have twenty-five tracks in your player.

Ready for the excitement? Hit “Play.”

What do you think of the first track? Great from the start? Horrible? Need to hear more before you decide? If you’re not sure, click the selector to the middle and see if it takes off later. If you’re convinced the song tanks (trust me, you have to kiss a lot of toads on FMA), click “Next.” But if you like it, click “Download.”

[Do not proceed reading until you reach the end of the track list]

So what did you think? Some of the songs were just noise, weren’t they? Worthless and you hit “next” within a few seconds. I’ll bet other tracks had great music, but the singer had a lousy voice. Some tracks probably did most things right, but some critical elements were missing somehow. Or maybe there was nothing wrong with the song at all, it just wasn’t your cup of tea. But then there were the masterpieces, the tracks that started strong and stayed strong. The keepers. How many keepers did you find?

Feel confident in your choices? Well, guess what: you have just done what agents and editors do with stories.

Pretend the tracks are submissions. Some weren’t in your genre, and are similar to submissions that don’t fit the guidelines; they were sent to anyone with an address. Doesn’t mean they weren’t good, just not what you were looking for. Selecting three genres was like posting your guidelines in an effort to up your chances of finding something you’ll like. Even so, the quality varied from incoherent ramblings of people with marginal (I’m being generous here) talent, through people who did most things right but it just wasn't quite "there," to the perfectly fine pieces you simply didn’t like, to the keepers you will listen to five times in the next few hours.

Free downloads are one thing, now imagine being responsible for your magazine’s or publishing house’s financial investments in stories and books. As much as rejections sting sometimes, I think I have some idea of what agents and editors go through.

How many licks does it take . . .

. . . before you give in and give up writing?

This question comes up pretty frequently on Absolute Write. One of the common answers is: “Why do you want to write? Do you want to create worlds and characters for your own enjoyment? Or do you want to be published? Or do you want to be a best seller?” Your answer to that question sets the criteria for when to quit.

I want to create characters and situations, and share them with others. Lots of others. A posting site with ten visitors a month isn’t going to cut it. That means I have to write with an eye to being published, and being published well.

Anyone who has submitted a story or queried an agent has taken licks. “Thanks but no.” “Not for us at this time.” “I am not engaged in this story.” (Then I’ll rewrite it so the guy proposes to you. Will that help?)

In the absence of direct input, and it’s been ages since I’ve gotten a personalized rejection, it’s impossible to know why the piece was rejected. Was the writing bad? And if so, in what way? Too analytical? Too flowery? In an earlier post I suggested people ignore a form rejection in so far as what it means about the story. But rack up half a dozen on a story? Fifty on a query letter? When is the writing on the wall God telling us Belshazzars to get a clue rather than just the normal insecurities we all feel from time to time?

I don’t know. I wish I did; I could write a book and make a million dollars.

The question of when to quit is, of course, an entirely personal one. Just as the decision to write is. But I am going to give it ten years. In late 2007 I decided to get serious about publishing these stories I was writing; just over five years ago. When I was at this stage in graduate school, I had a couple papers in scientific journals and a decently received Master’s thesis. But I was doing things that would get me a lot of attention in another year or two. When I was at this stage in my career, I was building up a momentum that would get me respect within the small research community I was part of. It was too early to expect the invitations to symposia and such, but that was coming in the next few years.

Why should I expect my writing to be any different? I have a novel with Musa, and half a dozen short stories in small markets. Looks like I'm where I should be.

So by the end of 2017, I’ll take a look at where I am, and decide what I want to do then. I don’t want to “quit five minutes before the miracle happens,” but I think by that time I will know what I can expect from this endeavor. Worse comes to worst, I’ll have a million or so words written and have had a lot of fun in the process.

Don't let the sun set . . .

. . . on a form rejection.

I am not the most aggressive submitter in short story land. I have a really bad habit: when I get a “thanks, but no” on a short story, my impulse is to lick my wounds and hide for a while. Let the disappointment heal. Figure out what went wrong. Revise and rewrite. I need to break this habit.

The problem with this strategy is that when we get those (as my Dad used to call them) “Dear Asshole” letters, it’s just about impossible to know precisely what the editor didn’t like. Was the climax anti-climatic? Did the dialog tank? Would the story have been better in first person than third?

I’m not an expert, but I suspect if the reason had been as concrete as these examples, the editor would have let me know. Those are tangible, fixable problems.

So what is so horribly wrong with my “thanks, but no” response stories? (It could be worse, you know. I saw on a forum that, back in the days of SASE and monster postage expenses, one author got her story back from an editor with “BURN IT” written in red pencil across the top. No other input was provided).

Chances are, nothing is horribly wrong. Go to a restaurant. Look at the forty items on the menu. Pick one. An editor (or an agent for novels) does the same thing with stories. There might be nothing wrong with the pecan-crusted catfish fillet (trust me, there isn’t!), it’s just the editor thought the shrimp alfredo pasta fit the day better. The customer has no reason to explain why the other thirty-nine choices were not selected. The chef doesn’t have any reason to think anything is wrong with the pecan-crusted catfish fillet, and is going to continue to offer it.

And so should you. I don’t let the sun set on a form rejection; I send the story back out that day. No revisions. No rewrites. No regrets. In the absence of specific feedback, I assume that all is well and the previous editor is enjoying his alfredo. My story “The Sonic Tomography Experiments of Dr. Ira Taylor” in (the now-defunct) Port Iris Magazine got three form rejections before Port Iris said they’d take it if I made some changes. Which I made, and they accepted.

Now, what if this happens four, or six, or even ten times with a story? In the short story world, it can take several years for a story to accrue this many rejections, so by then it’s probably time to take a critical look at it anyway. Maybe that story was stylish when written, but enough time has passed to make it seem dated. Or maybe I’ve changed as a writer enough that I can tell the same story better. That’s when it’s time to revise, rewrite, but hopefully not regret.

The world of publishing moves slowly enough. I can’t afford to make it slower by constantly hemming and hawing over what I suspect an editor might be thinking if only she would have told me. She'll probably love the pecan-crusted catfish when she tries it.