As a writer the one sure thing about your work is that you'll get rejected, countless times, before you're accepted. The above picture is a list of the poems I submitted in 2020 via the Submittable platform which is used by many literary organisations. There were also a whole bunch of poems I sent off via email.
The way I've dealt with the inevitable fear and doubt of submitting my work to journals, competitions and publishers is to embrace rejection – #letgetrejected. I got this idea from someone, I can't remember who, online. I send out each poem fully expecting it to be rejected so when it happens I don't fall in a heap because it's what I'm expecting. On the rare occasions my work is accepted, there is great rejoicing and jubilation. Often dancing and shouting too!
Once I get rejected, I send the poem right back out again to someone else. Sometimes I edit it and sometimes I send it off as it is. I got this idea from Liz Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, in one of her TED talks on creativity. What one editor rejects, another may accept. It's all down to taste and timing.
If you write enough, you'll develop a back catalogue of poems you can draw upon to send out. And the process of submitting and resubmitting your work over a period of time will mean your style and voice are heard by editors. They may not initially warm to it but over time they will come to know it and hopefully, appreciate it.
