I should be better at this by now—no, not writing… dealing with rejections.  The folder where I house them slowly grows fat.  I could be depressed.  Did I say ‘could’?  But then out of nowhere comes the blind determination.  The rejection gets shoved into the folder and dutifully recorded in the submittal spreadsheet.  I’m sure this is a character builder.  I’m sure this should be a character builder.  Read the newspapers and immediately I am reminded of what a real problem is.  Yet it is disheartening when work you’ve spent so much time on and entered so much of yourself into should be sent back time and time again.

 

There are some writers who do not like to speak of this.  Writers who feel it is their plight to be rejected and not paid.  Well, it maybe the ‘way things are’ but that doesn’t make it feel any better.  And the result is the blind determination I mentioned.  This goes for all artists: the actress, the painter, the sculptor… 

 

What a strange pursuit, the using of your mind to create.  How do you know that what you have put to paper or frozen forever on canvas is right?  And what are the mantras other than ‘hope’ and ‘prayer’?  
 


Comments

DNS
11/22/2009 18:59

(I meant to leave the comment here instead of the next blog entry).
Thank you for writing about this. I recently read an article by a really reputable agent who said the authors that get rejected a lot can end up being some of the authors that leave the biggest legacies....so you never know. I never thought of keeping a rejection slip folder. If you feel the folder is getting too fat, consider doing an art project with it or making something out of the slips.

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