Skip to main content

The rejection pile.

Before I begin upon this journey of a ramble, please rest assured that this isn't a woe is me post, because those are boring. Of course it's entirely normal and good and sometimes necessary to throw a bit of a pity party, but all in moderation of course! In short, this piece is not (well hopefully not too much of): a pity party. It is: a ramble, definitely.

The rejection pile. The place where we all end up from time to time. Where everything feels too hard and not good enough and you wonder why you even bother, if your work doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.

Yeah. I've been there a lot lately.

Once I read about a person who printed out every single rejection letter she got in her writing career. There were hundreds. There were acceptance letters hidden in there too of course, but it's so easy to gloss over those and focus on all of the negativity because it can feel like that's all there is. Then she got a book offer. And she will probably have many more rejection letters in her lifetime too.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, aside from being all cheesy to say: keep trying. Keep going. Even if it's to say this to no one else but myself.

Kaitlyn, if the point of you writing is just to get validation from someone, you will most often be sorely disappointed. It doesn't matter who reads your work. How many people read it. How frequent those paychecks are. How big your ratio of  "yes's" to "no's" is. 

All of those things are nice. Getting published feels nice. Being accepted is good for your confidence.

But if that's what your self-esteem and confidence is based upon (which mine is very guilty of), then it's weak. And it makes the writing that you tell yourself that you love to do, kind of pointless.

Lately, I've been in that rejection pile what feels like a lot. Hunkered down beneath the "sorry"'s and the "not this time"'s. It's pretty disheartening, because it feels like all of the work I put in just doesn't matter. 

It's silly and very self-centered. I wouldn't think that of anyone else, but of course when it comes to myself it's a different story, as it often is for many of us. 

In the creative industry, there's never any guarantee that those acceptance letters and the validation will come. It's so hit and miss. So to chase after that is kind of sidestepping the point of it all.

Yes. I've gone all it's the journey not the destination that matters, on you. And you would already know that logically, well as much as I do anyway. I won't ramble any more about that because otherwise this will sound more and more like a life coaching lesson, when really I'm just a tired mum ranting online.

Back to the point. My stack of rejection emails has been sky high lately. However, for all of those, I've been lucky enough to get a few acceptance letters too! Which has been cool, but you know, not what I ought to be aiming for. 

Throughout level 4 lockdown here in NZ, I made the most of my husband working from home to have a bit more time to write. I ended up submitting several pieces to the parenting website Motherly, and all of them got rejected aside from one! I'm pretty stoked because it's quite a popular website and I'm hoping to write more for them. You know, in between the toddler-wrangling and the baby-growing and the ever-mounting pile of rejection letters. 

You've got to lose (a lot sometimes), in order to win some (and that might just be a little). 

So, here's a cliche to end on. Keep going. Keep being vulnerable and putting yourself out there to the rejection. Try to enjoy the process while you're at it.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It gets easier (yes, yes it does).

Last night I had the privilege of reading this post by Emily Writes; a favourite author, advocate, and rebel of mine. And my goodness, her words rang true! When our toddler was about 6 weeks old, we were at one of our first Space sessions where lo and behold she screamed for most of the time. I was trying to hold back the tears as I watched all of my mum friends with their happy babies, seemingly having it all together and knowing what they were doing. I didn’t know why my baby screamed so much and why nothing I did would settle her. After cursing myself for leaving the house and swearing to never go back, I started talking to one of the session coordinators. She told me that she had four kids, much to my absolute horror in that moment. I had no idea how it was even humanly possible to cope with one child, let alone four! I felt as though I would be stuck beneath these tidal waves of desperation and drowning and just wanting it all to end, forever. I asked her how she did it, you know...
2 comments
Read more

A review of the types of people who sell animals on TradeMe.

I’m always on the hunt for new internet rabbit holes to venture down during all these long nights. Sometimes I’ll just read random articles or follow a Wikipedia chain or read up about conspiracy theories just for the fun of it. I’m not too sure how I got into investigating (okay, that’s way too strong a word for staring at a screen to stop my eyelids dropping) the animals for sale on TradeMe, but here we are. Upon reading several listings and gasping at the price of these creatures, I began to notice some particular themes within each subset of seller. And because I don’t have anything better to do during these ungodly hours, I’ve categorised these sellers into neat, little boxes. Healthy stuff. Let’s start with the pigs. Surprisingly, pig sellers tend to be of very few words. I was lowkey disappointed because I expected an almost rambunctious air about them, verging on mildly jolly. However, most listings just include one or two blurry photos of the pigs at least 5m away in a paddoc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of birds and seed.

Earlier this week, our country got some disappointing, yet inevitable news. Community transmission of COVID-19 was back and as a result, we may all be returning to lockdown. While the government was working out what to do, everyone began to respond a little differently. Some played the blame game or jumped on ever so helpful conspiracy theories. Others started stockpiling toilet paper and flour again, as they seemingly must have used up their hoard from the previous lockdown. Some selfishly hurried off to their baches, trying to escape to a place where they could spend the time fishing. In my usual, unusual way, I decided that we immediately needed to get some wild bird seed. It’s not really the first thing you’d think to get when you’re preparing for a potential lockdown. Most would probably go for paint or vegetable seedlings or chocolate. But alas, this was my first thought to entertain my bird-enthusiast toddler. This posed the next question though, what to do with 1kg of bird seed...
Post a Comment
Read more