I've been reading about a strange but interesting society lately. "Mystery Method" by Mystery and "The Game" by Neil Strauss both document the ideas behind and nature of the internet fostered pick-up artist society. They're surprisingly fascinating books. Anyway, one of the ideas that Mystery and Neil Strauss both propone (yes, I could use "advocate" -- which is a real word -- but, I feel that "propone" should be a word, so I choose to propone it instead) is that aspiring pick-up artists will best learn by approaching many, many women. That way, any individual rejection isn't a big deal, because the pick-up artist knows he'll just try again, approaching a different woman shortly.

This made me think of the folder of rejection letters from SF/F magazines that I keep in my top desk drawer. The first one was really hard, but they get easier over time. And each rejection is made easier by the fact that I know I'm just going to turn the story around and mail it to a different magazine. So, I'm more excited by the idea that the next magazine might take it than I am disappointed that the last magazine didn't.