REJECTION

Such a bad word, isn't it? As writers, we're going to get rejection letters regardless of how "perfect" our query letter is, how many credits we have, or how hard we try to avoid them.

It is inevitable that rejections will be part of our lives. It's how you handle them that separates the successful writers from the ones that never succeed.

For instance, I know a writer that has awesome work but she rarely submits anything and hasn't for years because she takes rejection too seriously.

The editors aren't rejecting us as a person, they're rejecting our work for possibly several different reasons. Maybe they've already printed something similar to what we submitted or queried about. Perhaps our work just does not "fit" that particular market. Maybe we didn't pay close attention to the guidelines and it made a bad impression. There are so many things it could be.

The best advice I ever received was to "accept rejection and move on." That's what I've done and it's working.

I think what writers are famous for is their perseverance. Without it, we wouldn't be writers.....