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These days, "letters" usually come by email; but when they come by mail, I can tell by the envelope. It's the half-sized manila with my address label and my fancy stamps. Another SASE returned, another rejection. Inside is, most often, a postcard attached to my manuscript or query. The Providence Journal uses cheery pink stock, the Christian Science Monitor, a soothing pale green. The New York Times gives the bad news in black and white.

Sometimes I get rejected via letterhead stationery. The text, however, is usually a pre-printed checkoff list: "Does not suit our editorial needs," "A story along these lines is being planned for a future issue." Or, more pointedly, "Please read the magazine."

Most rejection letters end not with a specific editor's signature but with a generic entity such as "Articles Department," or "The Editorial Staff." A ploy, I suspect, to discourage writers from calling to ask why a piece was rejected. Sometimes, a form letter ends with a handwritten "Good luck" or "Sorry." Rarely does an editor write more than, "The piece doesn't work for us."

As my writing career develops, my acceptance-to-rejection ratio has improved. And my rejection letters are signed by editors willing to admit to their own names. Some editors tell me why an idea was turned down. The more expansive ones may spend two paragraphs doing so. Still, rejection always hurts.

We writers know we need a thick skin. So most of us file away our rejection letters as soon as we spot the word NO. We rarely look at them again. This may be a strategic error. Buried in a rejection letter may lie a spark of interest, encouragement, or even an invitation to try again. Stung by the NO part of the letter, we may be blind to those glimmers of YES. We may go on to our next article when we should be resubmitting to the publication we've just been rejected by.

Recently, I looked over my pile of rejection letters from the last ten years. I found, to my surprise -- and too late to do anything about it -- that many editors, while turning down a particular piece, had encouraged me to send others. "Try us with another query," a women's magazine editor added at the end of one rejection letter. I put it aside, resentful of her lack of interest in my idea. I now see that she was eager to see a revised query and had, in fact, told me what angle to use.

"We were pleased with your Gourmet Bicycling article that we published last Spring," a travel magazine editor wrote in her note turning down a proposal, "and we look forward to publishing more of your work." She never did, because I didn't try her again.

I'm not the only writer who ignores YES clues in a NO letter. A journalist friend last week read me a one-sentence rejection letter from a magazine. At the end was a comment, handwritten (clue # 1), saying "Too many commercial references." The card was signed by a particular editor (clue # 2). My friend was ready to send the piece to another publication. "But you could cut out the commercial references," I said. She studied the comment. "You're right," she said. "I will." And she did.

Writers who eventually appear in top-paying publications have often submitted and been rejected dozens of times. An Atlantic editor once told me that he keeps up correspondence with promising writers for years, waiting for the piece that "works" for his magazine.

The antidote to rejection may be a combination of persistence, a thick skin, and a healthy dose of humor. One year at Halloween, I taped my rejections to the outside of a cape, and on the inside, affixed with silver duct tape, a selection of my published articles. I called my costume "The Cloud With the Silver Lining." I won the best costume prize at two parties that night. People kept saying, "Stand still; I want to read your cape."

Most of the party-goers thought I was crazy to display my rejections so openly. But the writers in the crowd understood. They "read" me all night and guffawed.

Consider any personalized note, even one scrawled on a form rejection, as encouragement. Send your next query to that editor and refer to the encouraging words.

Ask another writer to look over your rejection letters; he or she may spot glimmers of hope that you may not see yourself.

If an editor gives you feedback on why your submission doesn't work for that publication, don't argue. Thank the editor for the feedback and say you'll send another idea soon. Put your next submission in the mail.

Ed. note: Visit Barbara's Web site to see some of her published work.