Rejected and Dejected

Yesterday I had the dubious honour of being inducted into the Scorned Writer Club.  Sitting in a café, eagerly perusing the day’s emails, my heart skipped a beat when I spied the words ‘The Big Issue’ emblazoned in the subject box.  I gulped, clicked, and in one fell swoop was brought down like a precariously stacked pile of old novels.  My first rejection letter.

‘While it was an interesting read,’ said the editor, ‘unfortunately your piece does not quite fit the content of The Big Issue.’

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.  Many a kind-hearted elder had attempted to prepare me for my fate.  ‘How are you going to cope with the rejection?’  Mum had queried.  And to her I had replied, in an overly confident rookie sort of way, ‘Oh, yeah, that.  I’m prepared for that.’

Turns out preparation requires more than a few casually uttered rebuttals.  I was crushed.  The lynch mob that lives in my mind spied their opportunity, and went for it.  ‘Told you so!’  They shrieked in delight.  ‘The only thing you’re good at is having an over-inflated sense of importance!’  Their taunts rang out louder and louder in my head, until I was drowning in a chorus of reprehensions.

Because the truth is, I’m embarrassed to admit, that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t think it was going to happen to me.  Let’s call it optimism.  But when people so kindly introduced me to the teachings of Coping with Rejection, Section: Emerging Author, I handled it like a smoker does when cautioned on the dangers of cancer.

Trudging back to Mum’s, I wondered if my ego would be able to withstand the months of emails that lay ahead.  I cursed my mother silently for inspiring me to follow in her footsteps.

She must have heard me because she was standing in the drive when I got back.

‘How’d it go?’ she smiled, a bouquet of freshly picked herbs in hand.

‘Shit.’  I kicked a bit of dirt for effect.

Mum didn’t flinch.  ‘Did you get your first rejection letter?’

Annoyed at her intrusion into my mind, I shrugged.

‘Don’t worry, Katie!’  She insisted.  ‘You’ll get heaps more of those before you make it.  We used to say a real writer should be able to paper a whole wall with rejection letters.’

I pictured my bedroom wall, covered corner to corner in YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  Fantastic for the old self esteem.

‘No one makes it on the first try!’  My mother beamed, and handed me a bunch of parsley to take inside.

Scattering herbs into the salad, I mused over the idea of ditching the writing and grovelling to an ex-employer.  I wouldn’t have signed up for it if I’d known it wasn’t going to involve my preferred type of gratification:  instant!  But the trouble was, I was kind of hooked.  The idea of giving up words caused a shiver of loss to reverberate down my back.  Frustrated, I turned my attention back to the evening meal and resolved to start papering my wall.