Quick – what’s the first thing any writer is ever told?

“Develop a thick skin,” because rejection will become a great and close friend. One that you become so use to that when acceptance comes you’ve got to examine it at least ten times. Am I reading this right? They really liked it?

Getting a piece of writing rejected for publication just plain sucks.

And it’s annoying.

I waited eight months for a rejection?

Develop thick skin.

I get it, I do. I tend to just roll my eyes and move on after I open a rejection. Rolling my eyes helps me process my loser statue in the writing world. (I do have one essay published so I might be a .1 above loser.)

Because it’s okay to be a loser. Most of the time it’s the people who aren’t noticed for a long time, if ever, that are often great artists. Look at all the great painters–most of them poor and unnoticed in their lifetime.

Moral of the story: die and have your family publish your work.

Okay at this point I don’t even know where my jokes end and begin.

In all seriousness – don’t worry about rejections. Focus on becoming a better writer and eventually someone will read what you’ve written and think, ‘wow.’ And personally, I would rather have someone think ‘wow,’ than ‘this is mediocre but teenagers will love it.’

You’ve got to figure out why you’re writing. If you’re writing just to get published, then I’d say first – you’re writing for the wrong reason. Of course everyone wants to be published.

But I’d rather my writing be worth being published.

So I’ll roll my eyes and move on, and try harder.

Real moral of the story: don’t hate rejections, they’re what gets you to where you should be.

(There is self-publishing, but for the sake of talking about rejections I’m referring to publishing houses / literary magazines & journals, etc.)