ash rocketship • rejection

of band-aids and bonsai

I have all of my best ideas while driving or in the shower and I start all my best projects around two or three in the morning. Granted, “best” is really up for debate here, since most of those ideas are just poop or dick jokes and the projects are just Google image searched images with transparent Helvetica slapped over them in Photoshop. THEY MAKE ME LAUGH ALRIGHT? I am my most important audience, for now and forever.

So, I was in the shower a couple of weeks ago thinking about Jesse Eisenberg, like I do, and I was like, DAMN, that kid’s like… a RAPSCALLION or some shit. Because he is! Google that face and tell me it doesn’t scream old-timey adjectives at you! If you can, you are LYING.

And so it kind of began with this dumb shit:

SCAMP, guys. Jesse Eisenberg is a SCAMP. He is ruined for me forever in the BEST WAY because I cannot look at him without thinking something Old Timey. RASCAL! RAPSCALLION! He’s like the sort of handsy son of a really wealthy southern oil baron guy who is charming and good looking and also RICH who is at least a little hesitant about groping you against your will, so he doesn’t really seem like a bad guy, just like maybe he had a drink or two too many and got REAL FRIENDLY so you just brush it off and giggle and say shit like, “Oh, dear, I had heard those rumors that you were QUITE the rapscallion and I do believe they’re true!” but really it sounds sort of sexy and delightful. And then he gropes you under your petticoats in a hallway. Something like that. OR WHATEVER.

I think this Old Timey Thing applies to Donald Glover too, but I have a harder time looking at pictures of him because they are like lightning directly to my genitals. SO ATTRACTIVE. I can’t deal with it. I just can’t.

But anyway, that dumb shit rapidly escalates into this dumb shit:

Kittens are a point of no return, right? I mean, really. There is no coming back from slapping text over the top of adorable kittens. There just isn’t. And then it just turns into transcribing your dumb tweets on pictures snagged from NASA and it’s over. It’s just all over.

SO: sometimes when I am having those brilliant thoughts late at night, my brain says, “YO BITCH SUBMIT SOME OF YOUR WRITING YO” and because it’s two in the fucking morning, I am like, “YEAH ALRIIIIIGHT.” And whatever, I’m hitting 50/50 acceptance to rejection at this point (because I don’t write almost ever unless it’s for fun, which means I have nothing to submit, which is a great excuse not to put yourself out there. FOOLPROOF.) so I don’t really care about the process. I come across a place that seems like they might take me, I submit, no big.

SO ANYWAY. I was reading a submission to the lit mag I work on at school and she mentioned another lit mag that I was unfamiliar with (This happens a lot. Generally, if someone mentions one, I haven’t heard of it.) so I checked it out, saw they had a nice selection of flash fiction and threw something their way. I logged it in my little submissions file (anal retentive, what what!) and put it in my calendar (redundancy!) and went about watching BBC comedies (Miranda) and forgot about it.

Guys, I am pretty sure I won the speed award for rejection turnaround tonight. Seriously. One hour and four minutes. ONE HOUR AND FOUR MINUTES. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I submitted the story AFTER MIDNIGHT and had a rejection shortly after one. THAT IS SOME EFFICIENT LIT MAGGING.

Holy shit. I didn’t even have time to worry! I didn’t even have time to obsess and then forget about it entirely, which is my usual submission coping mechanism. And let me tell you, this was a much more awesome way to get rejected. I know the longer someone keeps your work, the closer you are to getting in. And that’s great! But instant gratification is always SO SATISFYING and it turns out it actually kind of applies to rejection!

I know part of my cavalier attitude is because I just didn’t care too much, you know? I have extremely low expectations when it comes to anything having to do with my writing (greeting cards and hilarious poop twitters aside) but there was something about that rapid response — like ripping off a band-aid maybe — that I don’t think I will soon forget.

Aaaaaaanyway, it turns out this is all just a long way to say that if you don’t remember Bonsai Kitties, you have not been on the internet long enough.

PS: For the like… two of you who read this BLAHG, would cutting my insanely long and stupid posts be helpful or irritating? I HATE cut posts because I read everything on GReader and am also incredibly lazy, but I am down to do whatevah whatevah because I live to serve, guys. I live to serve.

SPURNED

Rejection. Rejection is stone cold. It is merciless and cruel. It doesn’t care that you’re having a terrible week or that your dog died or that you broke your finger when you fell down the stairs in front of the hot guy from your morning class. It does not care about your motivation, your attitude, your enthusiasm, or your patience. It will crush you whether it’s been a week, a month, or a year of waiting.

Rejection’s a monster.

You’ve been writing since you were a kid and got your creative writing degree and submitted a story to the lit mag at your college and got in and it was joyous and you were like, “Damn, girl, a published writer at twenty-two!” and patted yourself on the back and didn’t submit (nor really write) fuck-all for the next two years. Way to be proactive, Ash!

And then you submit a story a prof you respect said you should submit lo those whole damn two years ago and, since he made mention of it, you submit it to the lit mag he suggested. And you pat yourself on the back again like, “Yeah, I’m the man, being brave!” and you wait.

And you wait.

And you wait some more.

Then you learn that this random-ass lit mag is actually like, the third most competitive in the country and you shit your pants and go, “What the actual fuck was I thinking?” and maybe you freak out and you’re like, “Damn, they’re just hanging on to it to LAUGH AT ME AREN’T THEY!”

And you wait some more anyway.

And four months pass and you feel a tiny little zygote of hope blooming in the uterus of your heart and you’re like, “Nobody can laugh for four months!”

And you wait a little longer.

And then you get a slap so bad the fingerprints mark your face for a month in the form of a form letter.

And it goes something like this:

Thank you, Fuck-Face Amateur, for giving us four months of the hardest laughs you could imagine. Annie Grace pissed her pants twice and Frank Rebo almost had an aneurysm. This piece isn’t right for us. And none of your future ones will be either, but feel free to submit anyway. Shits and giggles don’t come along like that often.

Sincerely,
Bitter Editors Who May or May Not Actually Be Talented

And maybe you cry. And maybe you don’t.

Time passes and you get over it and you start to feel okay again. And in the meantime, you’re plugging away in an MFA program, writing a novel (which you’ve never even tried before) and it’s not going great and another short story gets shredded by classmates and professor alike and it’s like, “FUCK. Writing sucks. What the fuck was I thinking?” and you submit somewhere else because you have to and you pick another mag you know nothing about and you make sure you don’t learn anything about it PERIOD.

And you wait.

And you wait some more.

And four fucking more months pass (god damn if it ain’t your golden number) and you get… a fucking form letter.

Dear Talentless Hack,

Thanks so much for the bozofest that PDF turned out to be! God damn did we have a good time tearing it apart up here. Even printed it out and pinned it up on the hall bulletin board for everyone to see. Please submit again in the future, we run out of toilet paper often.

Sincerely,
Those Who Can’t Write, Edit

And you are bitter as FUCK. And you don’t cry because you have steeled yourself for this moment. But then it rains. And you’re stalled in your novel. And your mid-program check-up is rushing on you and you’re barely at half of what you have to turn in twenty-three days from now and FUCK.

And then you pick a fight with your girlfriend and everything sucks. And you step in cat puke and you leave your car window open in the rain and your parents fight and you run out of milk and some dickbag eats your hot cheetos.

But rejection?

Doesn’t give a shit.

Note: But you go balls out on that rainy night and you submit that rejected story to a writing contest anyway because that’s what writers DO.

Note²: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note³: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.

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of band-aids and bonsai

SPURNED

Note: But you go balls out on that rainy night and you submit that rejected story to a writing contest anyway because that’s what writers DO.

Note²: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note³: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.

a s h

recently

categories

of band-aids and bonsai

SPURNED

Note: But you go balls out on that rainy night and you submit that rejected story to a writing contest anyway because that’s what writers DO.

Note2: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note3: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.

a s h

tags

Note²: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note³: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.