Otherwise known as rejections or the big “R”.
As a writer, I know rejections come with the territory. Writing is such a subjective art that to expect anyone else to ‘get it’ is presumptuous at best, arrogant at worst. But to hope… well, that’s another story.
As a writer, I’ve written stories that intrigue me. I’ve developed characters about whom I care. I’ve given them twisted backgrounds a company of therapists would vie to take on. And I’ve allowed those characters to find themselves, face their pasts and forge new outlooks and relationships in the form of happily ever after. I’ve upped the stakes for them, hoping to challenge them in every way possible without tipping to farce, in order to show how life, from th
e outside looking in, is much easier to live than from the inside looking out.
Too bad I can’t apply that same vision to myself. For now, I sit with a long-in-coming rejection. One I’d imagined would never arrive. I thought this was ‘it’, the big break, and that from here my writing path would be free of at least one obstacle. I would like to look in from the outside but, when I try, I only see hours, days, months, years of working toward a dream that has yet to come true. I can only wonder whether I’ve invested too much to stop now, or whether I’ve invested too much to bother investing more.
I always pose this question when a rejection comes through. And I always seem to overcome it with new energy, new determination. New characters and stories. Now? I don’t know. I guess I can’t speak for what will happen or how I’ll think in the coming months. But at this moment, I can only say it’s time to turn over, fluff the pillow and find myself a new dream.
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