Editors: What Do They Know Anyway?

Yesterday, I recieved my zillionth rejection letter. Ok, it wasn't even a letter, it was a tiny piece of paper, just bigger than a bookmark, on which the word 'no' had been cruelly stretched into a whole paragraph.
It is a custom, one of the many ritualistic practices of writers--who are notoriously superstitious---to keep our rejection letters, memos, postcards, whatever. And that's what I have done these last two years. I've clipped each one onto the growing pile of rejections, as if it were a precious memento, a keepsake, an heirloom photograph.

Until yesterday. I tore the awful little scrap of dismissal into bits along with the tainted envelope it came in, and threw it away. I wondered, why am I harboring these horrible, thoughtless, talent-negating insults? Why am I keeping them, and pretending, yes pretending that they have value?
Most of them are form letters, vague and detached in their can't-be-botheredness. I've learned nothing from them, have no clue why my work didn't meet par, so why on earth have I filed these dismissive missives with more care than any of their cold words would muster?

Because other writers do.

And I've decided it's stupid and pointless and confidence-eroding. I'm burning the stack I've collected because the last thing I need around my workspace is that kind of negativity and apathy.

To the Editors:

I regret to inform you that I'm rejecting your rejection letters. They do not meet my creative needs at this time, nor will they ever. You see, my desk is overflowing with my own work, essays and poems and letters which have much thought put into them, and your letters, memos, bookmarks, etc, just don't beat with the same heart of my writing, and if anything is going to take up room on my desk, it's going to be my own fucking writing.

I would advise you to read my work first, before submitting your non-opinion, which you usually address to no one in particular. Lazy bastards.

Best of luck elsewhere,

Cindy St. Onge