The editor I wrote to yesterday morning wasn't the one who sent me the rejection; that was the assistant editor. But he (the editor) replied to my e-mail (which was nice), saying he never read my story (which was disappointing). He wrote that his assistant "read the article carefully and passed it on to me to read. I am just hopelessly far behind with manuscripts right now, mainly because I am pushing hard to finish a book I’m writing."
This fell clearly into the category of too much information. It made me seriously envious (so he has a job AND a book contract). It also made me wonder what writing a book has to do with running a magazine. Presumably he is not writing his book while on the job. Would an editor write to a disgruntled freelancer explaining that he is a single father with five adopted children at home?
I was tempted to send back an e-mail: "I'll be sure to buy the book that kept you from reading my story." But I refrained.
Just as we entertain unrealistic expectations of travel, we harbor unrealistic expectations of return. This morning I woke up at 5:30 with a sore throat and couldn't get back to sleep because I was composing in my head a letter to an editor who rejected me yesterday.
Travel writers have a lot in common with poets. We both take on big, universal subjects - the world and life - and we both make very little money. Our titles give us both an aura of luxury (mobility for us, time for poets). We each practice a type of writing that is extremely appealing to wannabe writers. (As many sins are committed in the name of travel writing as are committed in the name of poetry.) The best travel writers, like the best poets, are usually unknown outside their small circle. The major difference is that we don't get a National Travel Writing Month.
I'm working on a collection of rejected pieces, because I know how much publishers hate collections of published pieces.
It's the Monday after Easter and once again I'm wishing I were in Buffalo. Today is the 50th anniversary of the city's celebration of the Polish holiday of Smygus Dyngus, when boys would traditionally douse girls with buckets of water. In Buffalo, people use squirt guns, and proffer bouquets of pussy willows. This year's celebration would have been the ideal one to attend, not just because of the anniversary but because of the late arrival of Easter. But one of these years, Alicja, one of these years...
The editor I lunched with in Washington told me that he has everyone on his staff freelance a story once a year, so they know what it's like on the other side.