20141017.0654

Some time ago, I sent a short essay in for review. This morning, I opened my email to find that it had been rejected. I have discussed the idea before, and I have had it happen since, so I am not terribly hurt by it; rejections happen. I am left, however, uncertain as to what I ought to do about the rejection. I worked on the piece diligently, and if it does not fit in one journal, that does not mean I ought to set the project aside as of no value. Yet it has been rejected, so there is clearly something wrong with it, if only the circumstances of its submission.

Several options for what to do with it present themselves. Perhaps the easiest is to take the text as it is and post it as a submission to Travels in Genre and Medievalism, which is in need of more material anyway and which is at least amenable to the kind of work the essay represents. (If you have submission ideas, send them along.) Slightly more challenging would be to submit it as a conference paper for the next conference cycle; the paper is already of the appropriate length for doing so, and I would be able to get useful feedback on it for its improvement. There, though, I have the danger of seeing the work rejected a second time, which is only slightly less intimidating than being taunted a second time. (I do not expect to have to dodge flying cattle.)

A more difficult path, and more intensive, will be to pore over the typescript once again, taking it line by line and revising it extensively until it is twice its present length and suitable for submission to a more formal journal. The benefit would be in having a fully formal publication to my credit, something that I need to make myself more hirable in the academic community. But it still raises the specter of rejection, and it would be worse to have the piece rejected after the additional work than to have it rejected again only after the work that I have already done to it. It is likely worth the risk, I admit, but I am not at all sure I can take the time that would be required to actually take the risk at this point; there are many other things I need to do, after all, including a number of other papers that are already in progress for revision and submission.

I am sure I can shoehorn some treatment of the work in somewhere and somewhen. I will have to, I think, just as I will have to do a great many other things. I will need to find the resources to make it happen, though, and I fear I have already missed many deadlines to apply for such things...and many other things that would have similarly salubrious effects for my work and for me. Such is the glamorous life of a scholar in the academic humanities...