Signs

Does the fact that the person who sends you the rejection letter signs a name, which turns out to belong to a real person (You find out, of course, by googling) — does that make the rejection an “encouraging” one?  Or does the editor always sign her/his name?

Does the fact that nowhere in the letter does it mention the title of your piece —  is that a bad sign?  But, then, how do you know which piece you sent them?  It was such a long time ago!  For that matter, how do they remember?

Today you started writing a new story, and it was so exciting.  For, like, 20 minutes.  Then you remembered that your first line —  you had read it somewhere.  So you decided to google it, just to make sure.  And the first time you googled the line, you drew a blank.  So you kept on writing.  But after a half hour more, you suddenly thought you remembered the name of the writer whose work had that line.  And you googled the line and the writer together, and —  BINGO!  You hit on the story.  Which, yup, had the exact same first line (Short:  only three words.)

And now, you’re wondering:  Is that plagiarism?  Even though it was subconscious?  How could the writer’s story have seeped into your subconscious like that?  It must have been at least a decade since you read that story!

And you got so un-nerved, you decide to quit writing for the day.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.