The rejection email that made me happy

 

A couple of months ago, when I was just figuring out the kind of things I like to write, I wrote a couple of pieces of flash fiction. I submitted these to a few journals that specialize in flash fiction. It was a steep learning curve where I made a lot of mistakes that I think many new writers make- not thoroughly reading the submission guidelines, not paying attention to what the editors want, etc. Needless to say, I received quite a few standard rejection emails. 

But there was one that made me really happy. Why should a rejection email make anybody happy, you might ask? Well for one thing, it wasn't a standard rejection email: meaning, my story had actually been read; and for another, I received some very lovely feedback.

I'm sharing the screenshots of the email below:

 "There is a beautiful richness in the descriptions in this story." I was high on these words for the next few days. A slush reader, sitting in UK, had actually read my story and had found something to like about it.

Not my sister. Not my husband. Not my best friend. Not my other friends who usually read and like my writing. This was a random stranger! A random stranger, who works for a paying literary magazine, liked what I wrote!

It was definitely a win!

It made me realise that we're so often worried only about the end result that we forget to take the wins we deserve. 

Let's be kind, not just to each other, but also to ourselves. 

P.S: I've decided I'm going to share the story here soon.