I've chalked (etched? - that's how it feels) up four rejections so far this year. 'Tis the way of things, or so I'm told. We are talking, by the way, of rejections of my writing. That's all.
Ah, but it feels like so much more.
I recall an email from my father where he talked (wrote) about rejection and his attitude to it. It was very painful, he wrote, to see what you had come to regard as your children being rejected - as, and he understood this, is the norm for any writer.
His solution was to stop submitting. Instantly, no more pain.
Of course, he did have a decade of publishing columns in a couple of publications and was asked to contribute to another. As he put it, it was nice to be wanted.
And he still wrote, and wanted to write more. He had hopes of writing something of significance. Then time ran out.
I am no friend of pain. And rejection? I have grave difficulty with it. It is very hard (a euphemism for impossible) not to take it personally. At least, for me it is. But I have no wish to run out of time.
And so I write. And will continue to submit. And will continue, for 'tis the way of things, to receive rejections of my writings.
Thank goodness I like the writing part, the storytelling part. And thank goodness I am obstinate.
