What It Really Looks Like

I submitted a work to the "On Campus" column at the New York Times. I was told from an automatic email that I will be contacted by Wednesday if they planned on publishing my essay.

Of course, after I sent it in, I realized that if you look closely at the NYT, there's a paragraph break every two sentences, sometimes there is only a sentence in a paragraph. I assume this is so it's easier to read, giving the impression that the work is shorter than it really is.

So, I had a big, block paragraph starting my essay, and perhaps, that will be held against me. It was also over 1,700 words, and although the NYT says it will consider any length, they held that usually an article is 500-1000 words, leaving mine enormously big. I wanted to shorten it, of course, but had no idea what parts should be left out. Plus, as the English instructor once told me, removing parts of an essay is painful. And of course, I would have liked his feedback, but that's not possible (although I'm sure if I sent it to him, he would respond in some way, probably with his usual break down, sentence by sentence), but it would be odd for him to edit a work that is solely about him in English 156.

I left out the parts of English 156 that I didn't like and did not include the rabid remarks from my classmates about bipolar disorder, the very illness that was intertwined in the essay. Instead, I spoke highly of the English instructor, leaving the reader wondering why the narrator and he never got together romantically, although that was the desire of the student. If there was a happy ending to tell, I would have written it. But none exists. I realize that a student falling in love with her English professor is not exactly extraordinary news, I'm sure it happens all the time, but I was hoping to provide a different perspective to the situation anyway.

I have ideas for submitting to the NYT's "disability" column, although I haven't started editing my essay yet (I wrote it in 2013, and I'm planning on just taking the best bits out). The newspaper has re-opened submissions for their "Modern Love" column, supposedly their most popular article. I don't see why I can't keep writing and sending my essays in as I receive each rejection.

While a lot of students have gain affection for one of his/her professors, few can accurately describe what real psychosis looks like. I plan on just writing about my psychotic episode that gripped me in 2011.