Rejection? Well, I’ve had a few. It’s tough. Gutting. Confidence destroying. It gets to you and you want to give up. Writing? Bugger that, too hard. Everyone hates my writing so I may as well give up.

Been there. Thought that.

Many years ago I had an experience that was pretty awful and I decided that day, that I would be different. Live differently. Because when something like that happens, something that appears senseless, you want to make it mean something. At least I did. I didn’t want to pretend it hadn’t happened. I didn’t want to forget it. I wanted it to mean something.

So what has this got to do with rejection? Well, I just remembered that little vow of mine the other day and thought that in fact, it’s very applicable to writing.

ion. At least the grief and gutting-ness of it.

it’s very easy to put that email, that letter into a drawer somewhere and pretend it didn’t happen. It’s very easy to push aside that grief and angst, ignore it, pretend it’s not there. And give up. Go on as if nothing had happened.

Well, I’m advising you not to do that. Take that rejection. Don’t let it sit in your drawer. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen. If you want this, look at that letter. Read it. Think about why your ms might have been rejected. Sometimes the things the editors tell you in the letters are just surface stuff and it might not make sense to you. ‘But I put that in!’ you cry. ‘I did that!’. Well, look again. Look deeper. The stuff that doesn’t work on the surface might be a symptom of a deeper problem. Character. Conflict. Are you sure you know your characters? Is their conflict part of who they are?

I won’t let my Rs mean nothing.