Acceptance drought, what if people think your character is a self-insert, etc // Writing Chat

Writers can go months—sometimes years—without acceptance, and that dry spell doesn’t necessarily mean their work has gotten worse. In a wide-ranging conversation about publishing, two writers compare “acceptance drought” to a psychological reset: when external validation stops, it becomes harder to trust internal judgment, and rejection starts to feel personal rather than probabilistic.

Both describe how submission patterns used to cushion the blow. Early on, they submitted broadly, often without expecting results, which made rejection easier to absorb. Over time, experience sharpened their sense of where their work “fits,” and that realism raised the stakes. When a writer has been published in a magazine before—or knows the market well—silence from that same ecosystem can trigger harsher self-audgment: not “they didn’t like it,” but “what did I do wrong this time?” One participant recounts a long gap between acceptances that culminated in a final acceptance after multiple rounds of edits, which still didn’t feel like a celebratory win—more like relief after prolonged uncertainty.

The conversation also ties drought to structural factors beyond craft. Pandemic-era disruption is cited as a major variable: isolation reduced the variety of lived experience, reading rhythms changed, and stress interfered with both writing and the mental “spark” that turns a concept into a story. Even when ideas appear, fiction can stall if the writer can’t access the character’s voice—the internal sound that makes the next scene feel inevitable. Both note that poetry may remain easier to generate because it can “float” without the same demand for event-driven momentum.

A key theme is how subjective taste and logistics shape outcomes. One participant describes reading tens of poems weekly for a poetry journal and uploading only a small fraction, with even fewer ultimately accepted—an illustration of how many layers sit between “good” and “published.” Editors’ preferences, timing, and submission volume all matter, and a piece can be loved by one reader and rejected by an editor-in-chief. That gap between effort and outcome helps explain why drought can persist even when writers are improving.

Perfectionism and imposter syndrome intensify the cycle. Writers talk about chasing a “perfect story” for contests, only to discover that the conditions that produced a past breakthrough can’t be replicated on command. They also discuss how editing changes the relationship to writing: drafting feels like creation, while editing can feel like cleanup—until it becomes clear that revision isn’t punishment but a way to access the story’s deeper shape. In the end, the conversation argues for reframing uncertainty: acceptance is not a direct scoreboard of talent, and consequences—whether in fiction or in a writing career—often unfold later than expected.