Rejection

I just received another rejection in my inbox today.  It is for a story I have sent out…I think the number is five times so far.  The first three times it was rejected I felt rather crushed.  It was like I had been stabbed, and the short form letters they rejected me with were just the twisting of the knife.   (Dramatic I know, but I still have this occasional delusion that goes something like the kid’s day dream from A Christmas Story.  The one where he writes what he wants for Christmas and the teacher weeps over his paper.)

This time when the rejection came I was mostly just frustrated.  Part of me wants to crumple the thing up and toss it back into the draw it came from.  The rest of me knows I have to shove it back out there. (The pyro part of me wants to print out a copy just so I can light it on fire with a candle and watch the words burn slowly.  Don’t worry. That part is always over ruled.)  One of the rules I heard repeated over and over again at LibertyCon this year was “Leave it on the market until it sells.”

I am doing my best to follow this advice.  It gets hard sometimes because the doubts start creeping up.  What if the story wasn’t as good as I thought it was?  What if no one wants it?  What if it is really bad but someone does buy it and then that is the story everyone sees and makes them decide I suck at writing so they never read anything of mine again?

Silly?  Yeah I know.  But that’s all part of it.  I just have to keep putting that one foot in front of the other, even if it feels like I am just walking on a treadmill.