AUTHOR'S CORNER;

DEALING WITH REJECTION

Rejection; one of the most rejected words in the English language, in any language!  Rejection is a personal statement made on the core of the personal self; it is a direct no, an absolute disagreement, a definite dislike of whatever it is one happens to be offering.  Basically it is no to you!  

From a young age we are taught how to behave, to act, to speak.  We are taught how to conduct ourselves in a way which is acceptable to our peers, our elders and our teachers. We are always reminded or shown, that acceptance is the most important thing in our society, guided by our parents and teachers on how best to fit in lest we become unacceptable.  To add to the mix, in the Western Society we are brainwashed into high achievement, be it in social scenarios or work.  The media tells us that we should be sparkly, beautiful, intelligent and famous, and not only are we bombarded with fictional super humans, we are also shown reality shows such as Big Brother, where everybody is talented, beautiful and very successful.  In fact, according to that flat screen in our living rooms, we should all be Hollywood on Botox!  The life goal is set very high indeed!

We have a keeping up with the Jones' attitude to life and because of this we watch one another like hawks and in turn get watched and judged.  Dare claim you have a talent and immediately you are thrust into a sort of Hunger Games scenario where you now have limited time to prove to the world that you really do have a talent.  Pressure becomes unbearable!  One can see that not only does rejection become unpleasant, but quite frankly a phobia!

Which brings me quite nicely to my main point; the amount of rejections writers have to endure.  Claiming you have a talent is brave enough, writing the novel is a long and time consuming activity, full of pitfalls and irritating writers' block.  But that was the easy part; the fun, exciting, deluded part of the whole process.  The heartbreaking, soul destroying part is yet to come.  This part involves stepping out of your comfort zone, writing cover letters and sending them along with your manuscript to an agent or a publisher!  Basically, you might as well cut out a kidney and post that to them!  Because for every slight indication of interest on their part, there will be at least twenty rejections to a consideration, if you are one of the lucky ones!  

This goes violently against the fragile and creative soul of a writer, who by nature of his/her disposition is already self critical and very sensitive and riddled with self doubt!  Each rejection letter is a stab in the heart, a mocking laugh in the writer's direction, a chipping away at their belief in their own talents and abilities to write a novel.  The saying you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, comes to mind. Whilst not actually kissing any agents or publishers, one must understand that your metaphorical 'prince' is out there, you just got to find them!

It is a natural and easy option to allow yourself to believe that you are not good enough after a few rejection letters. This is a big mistake, because you can't allow somebody's opinion shape the opinion you have of yourself. Remember, this is just an opinion, others will have different opinions, you've just got to find them!

This comes with the job; if you want to be a writer, you have got to be thick skinned and accept that rejections are a part of your chosen profession.  In fact expect rejections as a part of your profession!

And remember, you are trying to break into a big field, not everyone can become a writer or indeed is able to write.  Of course it's hard to break into it, that's what makes it special!

If you make the mistake of giving up on your dream, I can promise you, you may regret it in time!

Look, the odds dictate that if you try often enough and hard enough, something is going to click! I personally think persistence is even more important than talent!

because we have such a commitment to our talent, we can endure a lot of rejections, because even when hope is fading, we will find that we will come up with a paragraph, a sentence even, that will restore our faith in ourselves!

As a writer of fiction, and fiction being half my world; I always hold on to the fictional belief that one day something magical will happen and that all my dreams and hopes and desires will come true.  

Finally I'd like to share a personal story.  About seven years ago I was tinkering with finally writing that novel and trying to get published; before then I was writing for fun. I finally wrote a novel, entitled Cleopatra's Hourglass, which took me eighteen months too write. Feeling really proud of myself and on the brink of sending to publishers, I decided a well earned holiday was called for. Whilst on holiday my house was burgled and the thieves did not take the televisions or the video.  They did not take any jewellery either.  They took our laptops, mine had my novel on it, to make matters worse, my memory stick (the only other thing I had saved my work on) was also in my laptop bag.  I was devastated and felt that I had been robbed of eighteen months hard work.  Not to mention, I kept visualising the damn thief reading my work and mocking me! I could have given up and curled up in some obscure corner of life and be done with it.  But instead I felt so angry and so hacked off that I vowed that I would write again and become published.  I wrote two further novels and received like a million rejections, but I carried on writing.  I finally got accepted with a third novel (which is of course my first published novel) and have recently published another!

The moral of the story.....you've guessed it, never give up, you never know what's around that corner!