The Time Between: Finding Comfort Through the Submission and Rejection Process
The Google Ngram Viewer is a seductively simple tool for language-addicts like me. When the program was released ten years ago it was met with a kind of euphoria. It appeared to be able to sift through and present data on language usage instantly, giving the enquirer a snapshot of the rise or fall in popularity of certain words and phrases over the last 500 years. It was like a polaroid: capturing and spitting out a picture. I remember completing English assignments on it in my last year of high school. Over the decade, however, the euphoria has been tempered by skepticism: the graphs are not as accurate as once believed. This is because of how computers struggle to read archaic print, confusing cursive f’s with s’s, for instance, and with the overabundance of scientific literature that skews the data set. Having not quite broken up with the Ngram Viewer just yet, but rather telling it in in my best disgruntled voice that it’s on thin ice, I now compare Google results with the Oxford English Dictionary’s ‘Frequency Band.’
I am looking up the word ‘liminal’. The Google Ngram chart suggests ‘liminal’ has risen exponentially in popularity since about 1980. The Oxford English Dictionary has assigned the word to frequency band 4. There are 8 frequency bands, with 8 containing the most common words like determiners, pronouns, prepositions and so forth, and 1 containing the rarest words that have not totally fallen out of usage, such as the technical term abaxile (which, true to its frequency band, I had to look up). Frequency bands admittedly take Ngram results as their foundation, but, importantly, cross-check the findings with additional corpora, and then re-analyses the data. Frequency band 4 words are characterised by increased specificity but are generally recognisable to English speakers and are can be found in mainstream journalism and fiction. This, in conjunction with the etymology of the variant liminality, which has its roots in cultural anthropology from 1960s, confirms what I suspected to be the case: a growing modern interest in borderlands, hinterlands, thresholds, and in-betweens. This theory is borne out anecdotally in my life as a bookseller: the pile of new books that locate themselves as belonging to nowhere places and indeterminate states rises high.
I am looking up the word liminal because I am in a transitional state right now. It is one that occurs often in a writer’s career but is not much talked about. There’s plenty of literature available on how to handle rejection with grace and fortitude, and even why achieving a hundred rejections a year should be a writer’s goal. After a blow, it is endlessly comforting to read rejection letters to famous writers. But what about the time between? The time between submission and outcome, that restless, anticipatory period that feels a lot like a held breath painfully squeezing the lungs. Rejection, though always disappointing, is sometimes also a relief. Because finally there is a decision and we can move on. We could edit the piece and submit elsewhere or forget about it for a while. Do something entirely different. Rejection is still a release, if not a relief. When reading periods for magazines and manuscripts average months, and simultaneous submissions are not always welcome, I have found myself opening a rejection email to cry out, ‘Oh thank God!’ What I struggle with much, much more, is the waiting, obsessively refreshing my inbox as four weeks turns into six, and then eight. If it is a big piece, like a manuscript, it is difficult to focus on anything else than the imagined image of someone turning your pages with a curled upper lip and a big red pen in their hands.
I have also glimpsed the other side, because I worked at a small press for four years, often helping our Director sift through the submissions inbox late on a Friday afternoon. The publisher’s policy, as is quite common, states that if you have not heard back after three months then this is an indication that the work is not of interest and the writer is free to submit elsewhere. This is a time-saving exercise, because even a templated rejection email takes time when the submissions pour in by the hundreds. And it was a very small company, each minute of the working day precious. So as an employee, I understood this, but as a writer it was hard to swallow, because even a one-liner is better than silence, and I used to feel a sense of guilt when I deleted carefully crafted cover emails and manuscripts without so much as a ‘thanks’.
I asked a writer friend of mine about how she experiences this time between, and she rattled off a list of words: restless, agitated, bored, nervous, distracted, obsessive. Even if it’s only vaguely this, only a far-off wondering, there is still an invisible string connecting us to the writing that’s out there, not just published, but under consideration. I never forget what I have under consideration. And when you’ve chosen a career as a writer, pumping out short form as well as longer projects, there is rarely a moment when you have nothing submitted, when there are no grey ‘received’ tags on your Submittable page. If there aren’t, you perhaps question what’s happened to your productivity and where you last sited your mojo, which is another issue entirely. So, this ‘time between’ just becomes ‘the time’. The way it is. Part of the cycle. But just because something is normal doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be managed. Quite the opposite. This liminal space may be the everyday to a career writer, but it is still difficult. It can affect your focus, your ability to immerse yourself in your work-in-progress. I don’t know about others, but that sense of immersion, of sinking into something – like the cool rippling feeling on your skin when you first walk into water – is important to me.
Originally, I was going to give some advice in this article on how to combat that time between, or at least how to work with it. But there is nothing new here: turn your internet off, put your phone away, find a quiet place, ideally with a window. Natural light is a good thing, and warm bulbs are nice in the evening. For some, comfort is important, and others discomfort. If my chair is too cushioned I want to fall asleep. Walk through a green place slowly. Schedule your day, or don’t, depending on how you respond to structure. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don’t hold your breath. And don’t hurry. Take your time.
A surprise waiting for me in the online guides to the OED’s frequency bands was this: ‘time’ is the only noun that belongs in frequency band 8, the most used words. With all the prepositions and pronouns, auxiliary verbs and other in-between words that belong to this category, we can make some phrases for writers worth remembering: this time, use time, take time, with time, in time. I suppose all this is really just to say: be patient.
About
Charlotte
Guest
Charlotte Guest is a writer and bookseller in Geelong, Australia. She is the recipient of the 2020 Tine Kane Emergent Writer Award, and has published fiction, memoir and poetry in a range of Australian journals and magazines. Her debut collection of poetry, Soap, was published by Recent Work Press in 2017. She is currently working on her first novel as part of her PhD in Creative Writing at Deakin University.