A rejection letter.
I should be used to these by now, right? But nope, it still hurts. It still makes that tiny voice I usually ignore scream, "YOU SUCK. HAHAHAHA! You thought you could write. Well (rude gesture), sucker!"
And I'm beginning to worry that voice is never going to go away. No matter how many (whimper) rejections I get, no matter how much I should be used to it, there's still a part of me that's crushed. One more of my little candles goes out. And those things are buggers to light (especially if you're afraid of matches, like me).
So what does hand sanitizer have to do with rejections? Let's refer to word number two: Emotional. I FEEL EVERYTHING. Sometimes too much. Replace that word with "Sensitive" and you've got me also. I take the most impersonal of things personally. And even though I don't blame the editor for not liking my story, I cannot help but be devastated.
Okay, let's add another word to that hand sanitizer bottle: Perfectionist.
I am an achiever, so when I don't achieve, it cuts deep. It frustrates me. Depresses me. Ticks me off. (Look, there's the emotional side again.) So then I have to go to the story, gut it, string it up, and whip it until it wails what's wrong. And then I leave it to bleed while I work on another story.
But here's the revelation: I'm always going to be like this. The rejections will always hurt, and I'm always going to go on some sort of perfectionist, emotional rampage trying to figure out what I did wrong. BUT I want it to hurt. I want to feel. You know why?
Because it means I care.
I care deeply for every story I write. It's never going to be about writing for money or for publication or even for an editor's pleasure; it's always going to be writing for the sake of satisfying a thirst to tell a story, to create, to share. And that's all that matters.
Perhaps a thought, but maybe your looking at it all wrong. Burn the rejection letter. Think clearly about how many stories your agent looks at. They read quite a few stories a day, so perhaps they are bored with the genre your writing in, or perhaps they have selected the 8 books this month that they are gonna try to push already aand everyone else just gets a leter regardless becuase its easier for them that way.
ReplyDeleteBeing a fellow perfectionist, one must realize, when your attempting to perfect something, your actually defining boundaries. But when writing, there are none. In your world, you can make 2 plus 2 equal 5, and the leaning tower of pisa be at a 30 degree angle and still stand. Take Terry Prachett for example. I dont find his Discworld series to be the best stories I have ever read, but its his writing style, his cynacism that keeps me reading. Especially the wacky footnotes where he describes the invention of cake to be from the the mouse that scares a guy to drop a torch in a marshmellow factory thats burns it down but buts the vat of liquid marshmallow that covers the loaves of bread in the bakery next door. Its random, but you laugh becuase you could see cake being invented that way. Its not perfect, but it works. (Not a Terry Pratchett Footnote by the way, I just made that up)
Another thing, which I know may hurt, it maybe its time to move on to a new story. You wrote a fantastic story, but its not catching any eyes, so take what you learned from it and move ahead. Sticking on the same one is killing your productivity becuase of the emotions you have encompassed in it, and attempting to continue to make something work that just doesn't seem to, will result in a high level of frustration.
So, dust yourself off, relight that spark, pump the bellows until the passion is roaring, and then just write the craziest, random, fun, yes fun, that thing that was once involved with your writing, interesting story you can. Let's see the agent of his secretary put that down. Its like Howard Stern, whats it gonna say next? I have to know. And at the end, even if they don't like it, well, you had a good time, and your friends and those who read it will have a good time. Which thats what your writing for anyways right?
I did not mean for it to come off as if this rejection was a life or death moment for my story (if I did, sorry, I know I can lean towards being melodramatic). I simply wanted to illustrate that no matter how many rejections I've had or how "used" to them I should be, it still stings a little. And this was the first rejection I'd received for this story . . .so it's a little too soon to move on, I think.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your insights though.
You 100% described me in this post.
ReplyDeleteOne does what one can and in this case, yea, I'd say your right...
ReplyDelete