So many of my posts here relate to works already well along the creation pipeline--Love is the Thread, on its way to becoming galleys. Judith, ready for serious research and then (ha!) one last revision. The Fairy Gate, inching its way toward completion. Yet I haven't really touched on the nerve-wrenching and often painful subject of submission.
I just sent a manuscript to a new publisher. A client and good friend just received a rejection. She waited several weeks, a relatively brief time, before she heard back from the publisher. I have at least eight weeks to wait, at least according to the publisher's response and website.
When my client and friend grieved over her rejection, I told her that I used to save all my rejection letters (or print outs of emailed replies) all together in a big manila envelope. Every once in a while I would take them out and read them, usually late at night when my soul was at low ebb.
Then one night after reading them, I realized I was as close to suicide as I'd ever been. I'd once imagined papering a small room or a large wall with the rejections. Now I asked myself why I was holding on it all? (As I once told my sister and fellow writer, Nancy, "I don't need men. I get rejected in writing!"
At that point, at three in the morning with the rejections scattered around me, the joke didn't seem so funny. So I made a list of which publisher had rejected which manuscripts, then tossed all that rejection away. I've also learned to submit a manuscript--and then forget about it until I hear back. If it does fly home again, I decide, "Ah, I must have misaddressed the envelope. I meant to send the manuscript to the best home for it."
Then I readdress and submit the manuscript again. We'll see how that works out this time.