Celebrating Rejection

Courtesy of pdufour

As writers, I think we know just as well as anyone what it means to be rejected. To feel that we don't measure up or aren't good enough. And to hear this over and over and over again until we start to wonder if it might be true.


This is one of the things that makes pursuing a career in writing so difficult. Because, you see, the rejections don't end once an agent agrees to represent you. Publishers will likely end up rejecting you at some point, as will some of the audience. In truth, rejections will happen your entire career, because there is no possible way to be everything to everyone.


And that's all right.


But today, I'd like to celebrate the thousands of rejections we'll all receive in life. From the agent, to the editor, to the reviewers, and even sometimes from those that we love and hold the closest.


But why celebrate something that can be so painful? Something that we sometimes even come to believe for a time? Because rejection is proof that you're not just existing--you're living.


If you never dreamed, never tried, you would never put yourself out there. You would never spend hours and hours writing and rewriting and fixing and polishing and doing it all over again, if you didn't have something important to say. You wouldn't spend time learning how to craft a query letter, write up a synopsis, come up with a tagline and keep working on it until you got it right if you didn't believe in what you were doing.


And you wouldn't then send out those queries, those manuscripts, knowing full well that most of them will come back with a rejection attached if you wanted to live quietly in a safe and sheltered world.


Because by daring to dream, by taking that risk, by opening yourself up for rejection, you are living. And it takes courage to live, to try, to fail, and to succeed. Those rejections cluttering up the dark corners of your inbox are a testament that you have thrown off safe and secure, that you've stepped out of the black and white into a world filled with color and possibility.


And that is something very much worth celebrating.

Danyelle writes MG and YA fantasy. In her spare time, she collects dragons, talking frogs, and fairy godmothers. She can be found discussing the art of turning one's characters into various animals, painting with words, and the best ways to avoid getting eaten by dragons on her blog.