How to deal with rejection

Submit to a shitton of places.

It fucking sucks.

>It's by Donald Barthelme, well-regarded postmodernist writer!
It still fucking sucks.

Not OP, how can I get my collection of short stories published? I've had poetry and several short pieces published in magazines and journals. Do I need an agent?

Can you tell me more about the process user? How many pages was your short story, where did you try to publish it, what were the reasons they rejected it, do they wanted to know your gender or race, did you meet them personally etc.? I'm really interested, please reply.

Get a girlfriend who likes your writing and all that is over. It will become suddenly clear to you that publicity doesn't matter. You'll realize, as I did, that you've wasted years trying to be validated by people to whom you mean nothing.

There's a whole, prestigious world of high culture among the learned class but is that what you want? Would you feel happy among people who place themselves above the kind of person you are now?

Sure thing. Can't believe I actually logged on again and found my shitpost bumped.

Anyway, the one I'm sending around is 12 pages. I made a submittable account and submitted to relevant places. I wrote a cover letter, provided a very brief background, thanked them for the consideration.

Most of their responses are form letters. Some of them are personalized, something like "while we all agree you're the next Faulkner, this piece does not fit the theme/aesthetic of our publication."

Every girl I date is disgusted at my childish hobby of creative writing. Even if they don't mean explicitly say so, the tone of the conversation drastically shifts once I mention I write.

I would kill for a literary girlfriend, I really would. Not even literary, but someone who supported my endeavors. It's just pragmatic pragmatic pragmatic. Work is good, art is for children, all your free time needs to be spent on me, etc. I'm having a lot of trouble dating right now tbqh. I'm starting to feel there's something very wrong with me as a person.

>You're the next Faulkner
>We still don't want you
Damn. 12 pages is really short, for some reason I thought short stories are like 20-50 pages or something. Maybe I'll look out for short story publicists too. I think writing short stories is very good practice, since you don't risk writing 100+ pages and realizing it's shit.

All good writers and scientists get rejected at first. Plenty of examples. Therefore, just keep going. If you truly believe you have the goods, other people will eventually notice. Just keep producing and pushing.

I think if you're someone like me with other time commitments (job, family, alcoholism), it's good to start small. I have a few things published already, some of which took me two days to write, two or three more to revise. Once I get published somewhere reputable, I'm going to make the jump and try to have a novel ready.

That said, it's been a real dry spell for me this fall and it's quite depression.

Oh, and fall is by far the best time to submt.