Michele Cushatt, On Letters of Rejection

So you want to be a writer … are you ready for the rejection? Can you learn from it? Michele says Yes.

It’d been six years since I first started writing. Finally, after thousands of hours spent learning, creating, and rewriting, I believed my time had come. My bookwould be published.

Only that’s not what happened. Within a couple short weeks, I received one more painful rejection to add to my pile. Defeated, I threw myself a five-star pity party and contemplated torching my manuscript in the backyard. Surely flames would make me feel better.

In between tears and rants, I asked myself the same question I torture myself with at least once a week:

Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why, oh why, do I keep writing?!

Of all the crafts to pursue, writing must be the most grueling and least rewarding. I can think of a hundred occupations with much better effort-to-success ratios than this one. Even baseball players post better stats than writers do. And I’m convinced we work harder.

So why did I continue to try? Why did I keep cranking out proposals and posts, when rejection seemed the constant response? I wasn’t sure my ego could take any more hits. I didn’t have enough confidence left to even call it an ego.

At the link above you can learn what she learned.