Dealing With Rejection

 I have lived a charmed life, there’s no doubt about it. I lost a job once because I wouldn’t date the owner’s son. But that’s the only one, and frankly I was well out of it. All other leavings have been by choice. 

I have been able to do well in school. Maybe not the best schools, we weren’t anything close to wealthy, but I was blessed to be able to learn as I wanted.

And I have never had to worry about a having a roof over my head, enough to eat, or some5ing to wear. Well, except for those trousers with the monkey patch in them, which I hated but had to wear because my mother didn’t believe in discarding clothes with holes in them. Oh, the trauma.

OK, there were people I liked who didn’t like me back. And I wasn’t great at sports, so there was some losing there.

The difference with my situation now is that I’ve always thought I could write. And been told I could by friends, family, teachers. I have been surprised at how satisfying it has been to do so, as well, and by how much my imagination has come to life as part of the process.

And yet, three agents have so far rejected my book, and I have even scored an honourable mention in the four short story contests I’ve entered.

My head knows this is far from unusual. Great writers from Lewis to King have had to deal with scores of rejections before getting published, and I bookmark some of the many sites documenting this to remind me, like https://www.creativewritingnews.com/list-of-best-selling-authors-that-were-once-rejected-by-publishers/. There are also the many stories from agents and publishers about the many thousands of books they get sent every month, so you can’t really blame them if they occasionally overlook the genius that is my cozy mystery. ;)

But as we all acknowledge in our writing group, that doesn’t really remove the sting. So how best to deal?

This is part of my learning experience now, part of being an author. I’m finding that I can go away from it for a day, lick my wounds a bit, and bounce back fairly strong. And I keep one goal firmly front and centre: keep writing. Persistence is everything in this career, and the advantage of starting it so late in life is that I have the time and maturity to dedicate to it.

It’s a challenge to find love, but most of us manage to do that. It’s an even bigger challenge to find a publisher, but there are thousands out there, and I ain’t done yet. My match made in literary heaven will happen, wait and see.