Rejection sucks. No matter the reason, it sucks. Professional rejection? Personal rejection? It all sucks.

But, it’s all in what you do with the rejection that teaches you. We’re all allowed pity parties, tantrums, crying fits, wine, chocolate, the biggest most unhealthy bacon cheeseburger with a side of fries we can handle and… Oh, is that just me? Oops… Anyway, we’re allowed to deal with it in whatever way works best for us, even if it is to go around saying ‘I suck’ for the day. In the end though, in order to move on, to prove the rejector wrong, or to prove yourself wrong, you have to get up and charge forward.

I’ve suffered through several rejections of a professional nature recently and one personal one last year. Total suckage. You see everyone around you doing awesome, getting contracts, getting requests for full manuscripts, turning in book after book, and where are you? On the sidelines reading another form rejection. Dear Awesome Author, Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately… And it’s there you stop reading. And you don’t even read it as Awesome Author, you read it as 100% UNawesome Author.

So, once you’re in your little cave and have vowed never to crawl out again, what do you? That’s where the big decision comes in. That’s where the good, the bad, and the ugly are separated.

Me, with my latest rejection, I have congratulated my good friend who wasn’t rejected, and I repeated ‘Lissa you so suck’ in my head, but have been hard at work revising, plotting, planning from my little pity corner in my cave. I haven’t made chocolate cake. Yet. I haven’t made that burger with cheese and bacon. Yet. I haven’t opened the wine. Yet. No, I’ve kept on working. I’ve been plugging along and working and moving forward.

That’s the only way I’ll get out of this corner. Working. Writing. Moving.

How do YOU deal with rejection?

“It can be depressing when no one takes interest, and a lack of response makes the writer question why they’re writing at all. To have one’s writing rejected is like you, yourself, are being rejected. ”
? Lizz Clements, Apollo Weeps

“Rejection is a challenge.”
? Veronica Purcell

“I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.”
? Billy Joel

“Sometimes it’s helpful to remember that every writer sits down to a blank page and struggles with their writing. And even the best writers have suffered their share of rejection.”
? Jade Tyler

~lissa