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I had something of an epiphany today in the wake of yet another rejection letter from the folks at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and it feels like an epiphany worth sharing. Here it is:
Writers are insane.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “That was your epiphany? What rock have you been living under?”
Fair enough. It’s a well known fact that writers are insane. Maybe epiphany was too strong a word. Perhaps it would be more accurate today that as I reflected on my plight as a writer who has now been rejected from Bread Loaf seven or eight times (at least), I remembered that writers are insane, and I made up my mind to opt out of certain types of writerly insanity in the future.
Specifically, I have concluded that, for the sake of my sanity, I must opt out of paying people to tell me I’m not a good enough writer to pay them to become a better writer.
Here’s what I mean. I paid a $15 application fee, waited four months, and was then told my writing and resume did not qualify me to pay another $3,170 for a ten-day conference.
I should probably be jumping for joy that I don’t now have to pony up three thousand dollars, but like the other five-hundred or so other rejected writers (they say they accepted about 26% of applications, and that they will have nineteen workshop groups with 10 participants per groups, which suggests they had about 730 applicants), I was pretty darn dejected all day.
