I’ve been getting a lot of rejections and mostly I can take them but occasionally I feel like I’m just not getting it. There is a tinge of discouragement. Then something will happen – someone will say something or I’ll get a piece accepted – and I feel like I am getting it. I watched the Talk when Kathy Ireland was on. She made a statement that really touched home with me. She said, “If you’re not being rejected regularly, maybe you’re not trying hard enough.”
In writing rejection happens more often than acceptance. This statement made me realize that I’m not getting rejected daily and I get a handful of rejection at a time. Maybe I’m just not putting enough of my work out there for consideration. Maybe I just need to remember everything I’ve said about writing and rejections and keep moving forward.
Every rejection is a new opportunity. It gives me a chance to submit that work somewhere else. It offers me an insight into whether I want to submit work to the publisher again or not. Instead of whining about being rejected, I need to dig in my heels deeper and submit to even more places.
I’ve read it, heard it from others, and now with this statement of Kathy Ireland’s it just drove the point home for me. Rejection isn’t the end of the process; it is just the next step in the process.