By a series of odd coincidences, I came upon an interesting post by Jim Van Pelt about a website devoted to rejections. If you want to post your rejections online for comment, you can email your info to writerrejected at aol.com
Thanks to Ernest Lilley, I found this Actual Photograph of Slush from Tor Books (a 2002 picture - but I don't think "slush" changes much except that increasingly, submissions are electronic, so it's invisible email slush).
It took me a bit to figure out that Jim was inspired to write his post not because somehow the website had gotten hold of a rejection letter that Jim had received -- it had gotten hold of one he had written!
The bizarre response of the rejection website was to mock and denigrate Jim for his polite and thoughtful rejection letter that offered specific assistance (some pretty good tips that the great majority of editors would NEVER mention). Pardon me for not being a cognoscenti, but I have no idea of who "Writer, Rejected" is and don't care because the website is either a snarky game or the self-identified anonymous "award-winning" writer won an award like the International Poetry Expo book or whatever that is (Blogger is free, by the way - Typepad is not - so if you think that a "free" blogger who won't give his or her name is an "authority" - that's your right. I don't). Oh! Like "best of the Web" vote early and often. I somehow suspect that's the sort of award but since this is anonymous - who knows?
Wisely, Award Winning Anonymous Rejected Writer doesn't disclose anything in the pursuit of attracting an audience of Angry Slush. If you can stand to read through the comments on Jim's thread, you can see the Angry Slush in action.
The reasons that editors choose to primarily send form rejection letters are several. First, individual responses that aren't "yes" tend to inspire rage (illogically, bizarrely) in the Angry Slush. No "regular" person would have been upset by Jim's note. Disappointed, sure, but I think a "normal" person would have appreciated his feedback. It's very rare that writers get individual feedback from any professional editor. Jim happens to be primarily a writer who was recently editing an anthology, so he was responding from a more "empathetic" position than many editors who've never been on the other side of the transom (the "transom" is apparently the top of the front door window that opened and closed "back in the day" at NYC editorial offices, over which aspirants would toss manuscripts after-hours).
Second, some people who are very persistent in sending in their work (but who've never had good results) can be a little odd. Sometimes more than a little odd. For all of Award-Winning Anonymous Author's diligent posts and maintenance of the site, there really are other sides to the equation. Death threats are common. I doubt there's a single editor receiving significant slush who hasn't received at least one death threat. Other weird, sometimes very frightening "Fatal Attraction" threats also come up from time to time.
Anonymous Rejected Author was even most recently indicating there was something wrong with T.C. Boyle when he commented that he didn't care or think much about being rejected. There might well be "something wrong" with T.C. Boyle but it isn't his attitude or adjustment factor toward rejection. And while I've physically observed T.C. Boyle at USC, I sure don't know him. I can take a wild guess, however, and say that - maybe he has the same attitude that I do. I don't let rejections bother me much because I've gotten the clue that it's a business transaction. I am selling work (and of course part of it is "my self" - but the rejection of one piece which could be for a MILLION different reasons, most vastly non-personal and not even "negative") and if somebody doesn't want to buy it - that's their decision. Eventually, my real customer is the reader. And imagine these Angry Slush statements applied to readers of published work who commented that they didn't care for it? Or, who said that they didn't care to buy that type of book?
One of the best ways to get out of the Slush is to start thinking in terms of readers in general - what would they like to read that you want to write? Editors are just your first readers, that's all. And what I just said is basically their job. They are in the business of selecting, editing and publishing material that readers will pay for, and want to read.
