That's right. Fear of rejection is often the greatest hurdle for many people who'd like to write for publication. (I could have wall-papered my office with rejection letters when I started out, though I did sell a couple of stories early to "big" magazines, which helped my confidence.)
One thing to realize is that a rejection letter does NOT mean the article is no good (though it obviously may). One story I like to tell is how in the early 1980's, when I had started making a living (barely) free-lancing, I sent a letter outlining some articles to FIELD & STREAM, where I was selling fairly steadily. One was a flyfishing piece on "The Evening Rise." They said they liked the idea, so I wrote it up and sent it in, along with 20 slides.
They sent it back in a few weeks, saying that somehow the story "did not hang together," and the slides were OK but maybe a few different ones might not hurt. They suggested I let it rest for a few months and then read it again, in order to look at it freshly. If I rewrote it then, and maybe took some different photos in the meantime, they'd be happy to look at it again.
In about three months I reread the piece and looked the photos. Both looked fine to me, just the sort of thing I'd already been selling to them. So I sent the package back in to the same editor, saying I'd taken his advice--but not mentioning there were no changes. He wrote back saying that I'd "hit the nail on the head" this time, that both the story and photos were now just fine, and I'd be getting a check soon.
So some editors just have bad days. Maybe he read my story the first time on a Monday. Other reasons for rejection are too many stories on the same all-around subject already at the magazine, the story is too long for their format, etc.
Very often in those days I sold stories that one magazine rejected to another magazine. So if at first you don't succeed, it pays to keep plugging.
