Rejection

I received my first professional rejection.  That's right, folks - I'm officially in the business of getting rejected.

I am viewing this as an incredibly positive experience.  The best of experiences.  As soon as I got the email that they were passing on it, I sent it out again.  Now we'll just have to wait and see.

Rejection is as an important of a process as anything else in the time frame of getting published.  I'm not going to get a story accepted every time I ship it out the door.  It's a fact that I just need to face.  But every time I get a letter, or an email, it means that I have taken the most terrifying first step.  I sent it out.  My work, my baby, all alone in a harsh world, but I have done everything I can as a parent to make sure it's successful.

I'm very happy that I got a rejection.  Really, I've been telling people about it.  Every rejection I receive means another chance that I took.  And every chance I take means that one of these times, I might get the ultimate payout.  One of these days.  One of these days, I'm going to get paid for doing this.  I'm going to go through a lot of rejections before that happens, and even after it happens for the first time.  I'm perfectly okay with this, and you should be too!

I've heard a lot of things about rejections.  I've heard that anything personalized is actually a good sign, and that's what I'm going to continue believing.  Mine had my name at the top, and the line "I hope you find a good home for it soon." included in the letter.  How wonderful!  I'm very excited.  This is a new stage in my writing life, and it's off to a great start.

As you can probably tell, I'm very happy about all of this.  It's either laugh or cry, and I so love to laugh.  So bring it on, world!  I'm going to become someone great, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!