Bleeding Rejections



"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
	-Ernest Hemingway

The Writer Magazine recently published an article by Lisa Shearin: To modify an old comedy routine, you might be a iwriter/i if ... - The Writer Magazine Ms. Sharin posted a writer's version of Jeff Foxworthy's, "You might be a redneck if..."

One of Lisa's points: The stacks of your old manuscripts and rejection letters officially constitute a fire hazard.

Any writer I know, who has submitted their work to publishers or agents, can say this is true. If I made two separate stacks, one of my manuscripts and the other my rejections, the rejection stack would be at least twice as high. Possibly, three times the height, depending on how many times I've submitted a story.

Does this upset me? Sometimes. Ok, most times. Anybody in their right mind will tell you rejection hurts and there's nothing worse than repeated rejection. It's hard to not take a rejection personally, especially when you're excited about your creation.

So, sometimes I cry and sometimes I crawl into a hole for weeks on end and refuse to write but today I realized I need to think with my "write" mind and view the rejections as another chance to make my manuscripts the best they can be. I'm going to take out my pile of manuscripts and see what I can polish. Heck, maybe I'll write new stories while I'm at it.

It's often said that anything worth having doesn't come easy and while I wish acceptances came a bit easier and more frequently, the few times I've had a manuscript accepted, I forget all about the previous rejections and my "happy dance" is all the more joyous.

How do you deal with rejections?