That title might look like a lot of things to different people. If you're a basketball player, you might think of someone blocking a shot. If you are struggling emotionally, you might assume this is a social rejection. Perhaps you are the person that has just done some rejecting, whether in a good way or bad.
Let me ask you this. What do you think of when I say the name Stephen King? -horror novels -New England home -hit by a car -"Here's Johnny!" -clowns -prom I used to think those things as the first and foremost items of Mr. King. Then I read his book On Writing. This brilliant work starts off with his childhood memories. As he enters into his teenage years he finds his passion for writing. Even as a young teen, he sends out his writing to magazines. And do you know what happens? He gets rejected. Back in those days they actually sent out rejection letters. Today is mostly through emails and websites. When he was first rejected, he didn't crumble it up and throw it away pouting. Nope, the man took a nail and nailed his rejection letter to the wall over his desk and typewriter. He wrote so many pieces and sent off so many submissions that by the time he was fourteen the nail didn't hold all of his rejection letters. He switched to a spike! That's incredible. Stephen King was rejected from publishers hundreds of times. Remarkable. You might be feeling what I'm getting to. I have been making it a goal to send out submissions at least twice a week. I submit novels and short stories to publishers that are taking unsolicited submissions. Let me tell you, there aren't many. So the next step is to submit to agents, in hopes that they can get you in the door with a big publisher. With every submission comes hope and fear. Rejection sucks. I hate thinking about the fact that someone doesn't like my work. I hate feeling that I'm wasting my time. There is only one thing worse than rejection. That is, the fear of rejection. Getting a response that your work isn't what they wanted is no fun. But not sending in a work because you think, "What's the point?" or "Can I handle another rejection?" is paralyzing. That's when I think of Stephen King. Not only did he show incredible mental fortitude to continue pushing his work, he did it as a teenager. Maybe that's the difference. When we're teenagers we have more drive and less complacency. If his writing didn't get published, he could still go on with a new career path down the line. When I think of the process: submit, wait, hope, fear, wait, open email, sigh, repeat, I get weary. It's mentally and emotionally draining to expose yourself to strangers and find out that they hate your baby. Then again, it's the old-school American way. I've met authors before that are doing what I want to do. They sit where I want to sit. They speak and sign where I want to as well. I've looked at them and said, "What did it for them, but not for me?" And as I get the opportunity to speak with them, I learn their secrets. Every author I have met (Charleston has quite a few) has something I don't have. Many have self published like I have, so I'm excluding those. The magic formula is simple. These people (usually women) do not have full time jobs. They aren't full time stay at home moms. And their spouses are either retired from or still working in high paying jobs. I'm not saying that money buys you publishers, but it does give them an advantage. Let me explain. I wake up before 5am everyday. Why? Well, I want to work out and it is easier to do before I begin homeschooling my kids. (This is usually around 8.) So why not wake up at 6? I work every weekday morning from 6-7. Then I shower and get the kids breakfast, start the chores, down a coffee, and away we go. If I didn't have to homeschool my kids, I could send them on a bus before 7 and work out after my client. I would then have from 8-230 to do whatever I wanted. Those hours now are filled with teaching, correcting, snack getting, lunch making, chore doing, and attempting to work. I also play the main driver in "How to get my kids to and from dance and taekwondo." Those are the hours of 325-?? and I cannot focus on work during that time. I'm also training at various times throughout the days that take me away from everything else as I focus on their workouts and goals. So if I wasn't working, there would be a few more hours in the day for me to do other things (including less driving back and forth to drop kids and get home in time to work). Basically, if I didn't have to work and care for children, I would have hours galore to spend online researching, submitting, and whatnot. If I was married to a big wig in corporate work and didn't have small children to care for, I might get to go to conferences and meet face to face with people that could actually want my writing. These are opportunities that I don't have at this stage in life. So I have two options. One, I can live in the continual fear that I'm just not what people want and let this dream slip away. Two, I can nail the spike in the metaphorical wall and keep track of my rejections only in the sense that I'm not submitting enough. I choose the second. It will be hard. It will be draining. In the end, I hope, that it will be worth it because hope is greater than fear.
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