Dictionary.com has several illuminating definitions for the word "reject." They include "to discard as useless or unsatisfactory. To cast out or eject; vomit." I must confess my ego/soul has felt the stamp of rejection more times than I care to remember. But maybe I should remember them, for rejection has a twin: reboot, which in computer operating system lingo means,"A boot with the implication that the computer has not been down for long, or that the boot is a bounce intended to clear some state of wedgitude." Or to simplify, "to shut down and restart."
Perhaps the worst and the best thing happened to me the very first time I sent a query out. I got a request from a top notch literary agency. Though the agency ended up rejecting my clumsy manuscript six months later, the experience lit a tiny spark of confidence inside me that I could write something worth telling, just not well enough . . . yet. Fast forward several long years into the future, past multiple manuscripts, revisions and rejections, and I have new, better stories, and the chance to work with my fabulous agent, Natalie Lakosil. But I never would've come to this point if I refused to press the reboot button after each rejection crashed my fragile writer's ego yet again. I have no idea how many times I'll need to press that reboot button before my words find a home, but I've come this far, so only a fool would give up now, right?
Never give into wegitude, fellow scribblers! Never.
References:
"reject." Dictionary.com. Retrieved May 13, 2014 from
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reject
"reboot." Dictionary.com. Retrieved May 13, 2014 from
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reboot
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