Thoughts on Rejection

Rejection.

It's probably the worst part about being a writer.  You put your heart into something, work for days, weeks, or even months on something, and then someone reads it in under a minute and says no thanks.

And it stings.  It stings because we always have hope and we put a little bit of ourselves into everything we write.  Even when you submit something and you're mentally prepared for the "We've received many wonderful submissions but we can't use your work at this time," we always have that little smidgen of dream, of hope, of what if.  Of maybe, just maybe, they'll take it and then I can tell my friends/family/man on the street, 'Look Look I've been published in [insert name here]'.  Even if we know the magazine isn't quite the right market, or even if we know they only except so many a month, we still keep that smidgen of hope.

Because of that the 'no thanks' is crushing, we doubt ourselves, and wonder what we think we're doing, out here in this big world of writers better than ourselves.  Although as we get more 'nos' it doesn't smart so bad.  It still hurts but only in passing, we still doubt ourselves, but for a very short time and with each no, we can shrug it off easier and keep submitting.

Despite all of this we keep submitting, we keep putting our selves on the line all for that illusive 'yes.'

The first yes is intoxicating, the feeling addictive and one that gives us fuel to power through all the other nos until we find the next beautiful, perfect yes.

We're addicts, we writers.  Addicts and masochists of the literary kind.

Writing should come with a warning label.