Paper Cuts, Dog-Poop Smears, and Rejection

Rejection sucks. In an ideal world, I would simply reject rejection, so that little scum-bag of an emotion knows how it feels. Sadly, for us writers, rejection is probably one of the most important emotions to endure.On one hand, rejection is a blow to the gut. It slices you at the core of your passion and leaves you dried up at the bottom of a ditch somewhere, sapped of all motivation. But on the other, rejection makes you better. It points out your flaws, sharpens your story-lines, and cultivates a better style.Think of it like a flower—yes, a flower. Don’t judge me for my choice of metaphoric devices! I’ll use a flower if I want to, thank you very much. Eh-hem—anyways—rejection is like pruning a flower. It cuts off the dead-ends—the leaves that are browning and the buds that are wilting—in hopes that the flower at the center will grow stronger, and live longer, without all those unnecessary bits holding it back.That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Believe me, it will hurt. It’ll hurt like one of those obnoxious paper-cuts that you get in-between your fingers; you know, the one that no matter how many times you try, a Band-Aid will never stick to? Yeah, it’ll hurt like that. And be annoying like that. Yes—just like that.But that doesn’t mean writers should run away from obstacles with their pens cowering between their legs, fearing rejection behind every corner. For the longest time, I refused to show any of my work to anyone. And you know what happened? I didn’t get any better. It was only when I made myself vulnerable to rejection that improvement and progress were able to happen. When I crushed fear and refused to let it cripple me, I was able to conquer my writing—and conquer rejection.All this just to say, I hate rejection. I really, really do. It sucks, it hurts, it stinks like that annoying smear of dog-poop you stepped in this morning—everyone knows it’s there, we all smell it. But if there’s one thing I hate more than dog-poop scented rejection, it’s this: I hate being afraid. So, I leave you with this simple thought—don't be. 

Just Write--Dang-it!

     I have a love hate relationship with blank pages. As a writer, the blank page should be my best friend; an endless vat of possibilities, just waiting for me to pull creativity from its depths and splash it all over its surface! But as a person, the blank page terrifies me. Somehow, the thing that should encourage me and give me freedom cripples me, and stops all creativity.

     Over the holiday, I made it my mission to break the blank page barricade—I was tired of having shackles on my wrists, clanking against the bottom of my laptop whenever I opened a Word Doc. So, I set a goal. Nothing fancy or over the top; just a very humble goal of writing 500 words a day. Simple, doable, and productive…right?

     Wrong.

     It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced while writing. No longer could I wait for inspiration to strike, hastily scratching ideas onto a page to formalize later—when I felt like it. Now I was bound to my desk for hours at a time, waiting. Waiting for some suave, smooth talker to glide into my head and whisper sweet nothings in my ear, preferably in the form of witty, fast paced dialogue. Obviously, he was on holiday, too. Instead, I found an overweight drunkard, stumbling around in an ugly Christmas sweater with whiskey on his breath and vomit in his beard, barely able to hold his girth for more than five seconds.

     I judged every thought, critiqued every sentence, and deleted words quicker than I could write them. For the first few weeks, I barely squeaked past 500 words, some days filling in “that”s and “had”s just to hit the mark (shame on those foul, dirty words). I felt discouraged more times than I felt proud of what I wrote, and I questioned my worth as a writer. Surely, no one would ever want to read what I wrote—even I could hardly look at it.

     One night, in the comfort of my writing room, I sobbed uncontrollably into my keyboard. On this particular day, I had shared a bit of my 500 words with a friend, and didn’t get the exact reaction I had been hoping for. I skulked to my room, slammed my door, and barricaded myself to the same four walls for nearly eight hours. And still, nothing.

     A small knock rapped at my door, my husband bounding through the frame, obviously a little concerned about the vicious wails coming from behind it. I muttered out some unintelligible grouping of sniffles and syllables; to this day, I still don’t know how he managed to make out what I was saying.

     And then, he said exactly what I needed to hear, “Just write, dang-it!”

     The sarcastic Sally living inside me wanted to scream “DUH!” But then I sat and thought about it. Just write. Don’t think, just write. Don’t worry about what other people will say, just write.

     So I did. I stopped thinking about what everyone would say or think or critique. Stopped thinking about whether or not it was publishable. Stopped defining myself and my worth by the thoughts of others. It wasn't about them. It was about me, my world, and my passion for writing.

     I cornered drunken Uncle Fred in my mind, sobered him up with a hefty splash to the face, and sat him down right next to me. We were going to write, dang-it, and no one’s imaginary opinions were going to stop me.

     From there, it was like butter. I wrote to make myself smile, not to please the wishes of other people. I wrote what I thought was truthful, not what I thought other people wanted to hear. And I wrote because I was passionate, not because I wanted to write the next bestseller.

     As Steven King would say, I became a storyteller, not a status seeker. At that moment, I became a writer. On my own terms. In my own way. For my own happiness.

     And oddly enough, that’s when other people started to like it, too.