I got a book I'd seen recommended on a blog from the library today. I'd put it on reserve and it popped up today and I've been skimming through it. It's one of those rah-rah inspirational books that I don't typically read (other than Stephen King's On Writing now and then again) It is from Elizabeth Gilbert (the Eat, Pray, Love) writer and is called "
Big Magic" I got a kick just now out of the chapter on "Permission." I was reading it just after getting the above rejection.
"I sent my work out to publications, and I collected rejection letters in return. I kept up with my writing, despite the rejections. I labored over my short stories alone in my bedroom—and also in train stations, in stairwells, in libraries, in public parks, and in the apartments of various friends, boyfriends, and relatives. I sent more and more work out. I was rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected.
I disliked the rejection letters. Who wouldn’t? But I took the long view: My intention was to spend my entire life in communion with writing, period. (And people in my family live forever—I have a grandmother who’s one hundred and two!—so I figured my twenties was too soon to start panicking about time running out.) That being the case, editors could reject me all they wanted; I wasn’t going anywhere. Whenever I got those rejection letters, then, I would permit my ego to say aloud to whoever had signed it: “You think you can scare me off? I’ve got another eighty years to wear you down! There are people who haven’t even been born yet who are gonna reject me someday—that’s how long I plan to stick around.”
