What Do Writers Need? "Sitzfleisch"!

(reprinted from Black Fox Literary Magazine, March 16, 2022)

That’s the term my European-born mother used about doing anything and seeing it through. It comes from German and means the “power to endure or to persevere in an activity.” Literally, though, it’s your butt: the flesh that you sit on.

Growing up, I liked the heavy sound of the word along with its slightly comic meaning, and once I began my career as an author, that word became my guiding star.

Back before electronic submissions, sending out your work took massive amounts of Sitzfleisch. Once you had finished writing and revising, once you’d researched the journals you hoped to be published in, Xeroxed or printed off copies, there was preparing the labels for the envelopes and getting postage for the SASE’s. It was extremely labor-intensive.

And when those rejections came? Wow. I went five long years between publishing my first and second short stories, even though the first one was awarded a prize and appeared in a national magazine. I remember opening my mailbox one morning while the postman was still filling others in our Queens apartment building and half a dozen SASE’s fell to the ground with a thud. It was as bad as a pie in the face—and I had an audience, which made the pile of rejections worse.

Ever since you could start submitting electronically, the pain of rejection seems to be reduced—and so is their actual size and weight. A journal has told you “No”? File the email in the appropriate folder for future reference if you feel that’s useful—or better still, delete it, then go to Trash and get rid of it for good.

All the same, you still need to know who you’re sending to and pay attention to sometimes quirky submissions guidelines. You still need plenty of Sitzfleisch to do the work and keep working no matter how depressed you might be.

If you’re truly dedicated and writing is your passion, then your motto to keep fighting can be those lines of Samuel Beckett’s: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” Even though I’ve published over two dozen books and hundreds of stories, essays, blogs, and book reviews, I know that when someone new reads my work, I’m really starting out all over again.

But at least I don’t have to buy any stamps.

Lev Raphael is the author of twenty-seven books in genres from memoir to mystery and has seen his work widely anthologized, translated into fifteen languages, and taught at universities around the country. He escaped academia many years ago to write and review full time, and he currently mentors, coaches, and edits writers at writewithoutborders.com.

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