I got a rejection letter. And I am happy. Unironically so.

As some of you might know, I write and would greatly like to get published one of these days. I’m working towards that already, sending out short stories to various publishers in hopes that one day someone will read it and like it.

So far, I’ve gotten a lot of rejection letters and will soon need a new box because this one’s a little shallow. This is pretty normal, and I haven’t been all that upset about them. They’ve been form rejections for the most part to this point, maybe with a note or two about what they didn’t like and that’s about it. Other than that, it’s the standard photocopied rejection letter with a signature. I was starting to think that I was screwing up somewhere in the submission process.That or I just really sucked.

On Friday, though, I got another rejection that made me ecstatic.

First off, it was thicker than usual. Not that surprising, really. Every once in a while they’ll send it back with a page of your story or a pamphlet for the magazine. I read through the letter and it was odd. They said they passed it up to the editors for further consideration. That isn’t usually written in these rejections.Then it rounded off with a please submit again, which is. It was odd, but I didn’t think too much of it.

And then I flipped the page and there was a letter there. Written by hand. At this point, I dropped it and squeaked. It had a hand written rejection letter attached! Not just that, but when I picked it up again, there was a second one behind it! It took me a day to calm down enough to actually read them.

Hand written rejection letters are amazing. They had feedback, specific points and that feeling that they had taken the time to read it and consider it. Considering some places don’t send rejections at all, the hand written ones are the ones that I hold and want to frame.I am so ridiculously proud of myself for getting to the point where someone would do that for me.

That and I’m grateful that someone would take the time to write something like that. A hand written… I am still so happy over it. Awestruck too. I don’t know what else to say.

I need to write them a thank you letter now. I really do.