Failure is always an option.
As many of you know, I’ve been spring cleaning -
thus the injured back…
So what did I do today? Well…there’s this box, you see, this big box. This big, fat, full cardboard storage box has sat right next to the head of my bed on my side of the bed for years. What’s in it, you ask?
REJECTIONS…YEARS AND YEARS WORTH OF REJECTION LETTERS FROM PUBLISHERS AND LITERARY AGENTS.
Why, oh why, you ask, would I keep something like that next to the head of my bed? Am I some kind of masochist? Well…yes, I guess…but it’s more than that. I’ve kept these rejection letters for two reasons, first the pragmatic - so I’ll know who not to contact again, and second the emotional - so I’ll remember to be humble and grateful for the positive things in my life.
So what did I do today? I pulled out the box and opened up every SASE envelope, and I re-read all those impersonal, two sentence form letter rejections. As I sat cross-legged on the bed, I felt all that indifferent, disinterested, detached energy seep into my hands. It felt cold, ladies, very cold. I dropped every single rejection back into the box, carried it out to the recycling bin and chucked it.
As the box left my hand and clunked into the plastic bin, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I don’t need that negative reinforcement anymore. Probably I never did. I’m grateful, I’m humble and I don’t care who I contact and who I don’t. Those rejection letters made me feel like a POS for so long…honestly, do I really need to feel like that?
My friend, Regina Carlysle, recently blogged about the futility of New Year’s resolutions. I never make them, but I guess Spring Cleaning is a bit of a resolution in itself, you know, brush off all those cobwebs, toss out the skeletons in the closet and start fresh. Oops, speaking of skeletons, not my good luck mummy’s foot. No really, my good luck mummy’s foot from The Valley of the Kings stays where it is - long story. Smells like cloves.
