Even when you expect to be disappointed, the disappointment hurts all the same. I got the standard rejection email from a recent submission. “Just not right for us.” How I hate those words.
They’re really useless. They tell me nothing. I can do nothing with them to improve or change or focus my writing, my story, my characters. Nothing is not something I’m good with under most circumstances. I have control issues. I admit it. I’ve heard them so many times over the course of my writing career you’d think they wouldn’t hold the power they do, but not so.
To be fair, I’ve heard the opposite just as often. I’ve won a Golden Heart, the TARA, the Molly, Duel on the Delta, and Daphne Du Maurier. Not bad. I’m proud of those. So people like my writing. Just not publishing people.
And here’s what I figured out tonight. It’s something I’ve always known but tonight…something about it tonight finally clicked in my head. I don’t write what they want to publish.
So I’m not going to pretend I do and I’m not going to try and fit my square peg in their round hole.
I don’t know what that means just yet. Maybe I’ll self publish. Maybe I’ll look for an agent who can help figure out where I do fit. But I’m not giving up. I won’t stop writing. I won’t stop trying.
Because I’m a writer.