I am very honored to announce that I have a story coming out in issue 5 of mojo. This is a particular honor for me because it’s the first journal to accept me that is affiliated with an MFA program, Wichita State. The playground of pros(e).
I’m proud of this story. I was trying to do what DFW claimed to aim for: make something grotesquely funny and grotesquely serious at the same time. Disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.
Mojo is an awesome mag (read this review of it if you don’t believe me) – if anything, because I think they’ve got DFW’s aspirations in the back of their minds, too. Check out issue four, “How You Know” by Emily Banks. I shared that with my AP Lit class. Tell me that’s not a stunningly good poem. Read “L.A.M.E.” by Ray Koonsler and tell me that doesn’t accomplish DFW’s goal. This is not dilettante-ish art for art’s sake. These pieces clench you.
You get the email and its immediate elation. Like, I started jigging. A real affront to the indigenous peoples of Ireland. But then this odd wave of stoicism undulated over me. The rationale went something like this:
I try to be a writer who works very hard to create what I think is good and who truly values the process of creation and editing. Therefore, is indulging the elation of acceptance a negative high that also indulges and strengthens this feeling’s Siamese twin, the pain of rejection?
You always hear that if you want to be a writer, you should learn to not be fazed by rejection. They say that in particular in those doting writing magazines. It is a healthy mindset, but the part that they don’t tell you is that if it’s the case, that if that stone-cold objectivity is your desire, you also shouldn’t be fazed by acceptance either.
Acceptance or rejection shouldn’t matter. Acceptance should just be this nice little perk. The jigging should come when I finish the umpteenth draft and feel like the story is as good as I can make it. And I did genuinely love crafting this story. It was really hard work. I wonder if I’m selling that lovely, internally-motivated joy short by making such a big deal about its acceptance. Does the need to be accepted by others compromise the pure joy of creation? Probably the answer is not necessarily, but I don’t trust my ability to discern.
I don’t want to be an isolated, self-indulgent writer who never shares his work. I want to connect with people in that special way where we don’t have to necessarily be living in the same century and yet you feel a deep unity (the type of connection that I think most people want, but is extremely awkward to try in the flesh with a stranger). So acceptance is important to that end. I was just kind of shocked with myself over how immediate the dangerous spotlight-motivated feelings took over what I knew to be important.