And being accepted

Yesterday I wrote about having work rejected and how hard I often find it to actually do the work to start with.

Last night I received some bad news - the magazine that I normally write for has decided to have a shake up in its normal columnists and as I've been with them with the same format for three years it's time for me to go. Bad news for me but not really unexpected news - many magazines would have had me out after six months or a year at the most. So I've been very lucky and had a great opportunity to get my words out there to a fairly wide audience in the UK - you can even buy the magazine in WHSmiths and Tesco - it is a reasonably well known one. However as we all know, nothing lasts forever, not even the good things.

So that left me feeling even more rejected!

This morning I felt like crap but I knew I had to get back up on that literary horse and write the pages.

I'd also received an email late yesterday (the same time I got the email telling me my column was cancelled) rejecting some poetry of mine but telling me that perhaps another journal would be more suitable and giving me the name of the editor....

Climbing up into the saddle I emailed off the same four poems to the suggested publication.

An hour or so later I received a reply.

I can't say I wanted to open the reply - I didn't need to see yet another kind 'thanks but no thanks' message.

But I guess you already know what was there....

They want to use one of my poems in their next issue.

Now while it may not provide me with any money unlike the magazine job, it has got a certain cachet - the other contributors all appear to have been in print in very worthy publications and many have collections in print too.

And how do I fit into all this?

Well like just about any other writer I'm beginning to wonder when they'll discover that I'm a fraud and not really very good at this lark.

It has managed to kick start me into writing more poetry though and I can assure any concerned readers of this blog that I don't write terrible doggerel about animals.

But what do I write?

Once this poem is online with the magazine I'll post the link.

Meanwhile it's back to writing for me, now with the renewed expectation of possible acceptance!