Rejection - Your Most Dangerous Villain

It's been a rough couple of days. Not only did I find out I wasn't selected for an interview for a dream wildlife biology job in Washington...

wrong Washington, though the pic seemed appropriate

...but I also received two rejections from agents I queried.

I still can't figure out why Washington doesn't want me, since I feel like I'm a pretty objectively good wildlife biologist. As for the agent thing, though, anyone will tell you that getting lots of rejection is pretty standard.

But it's still hard.

And the worst part is it makes me not excited about writing anymore. Every time.

I've had quite a few sleepless nights thinking about those writers who struck it big with best-selling debut titles and movie deals and all that jazz. I think that, to date, these moments have been my biggest battles with Envy - especially when the authors were young, just plain lucky, and/or wrote books that I didn't find particularly good. Dammit, my book is good. Why doesn't anyone want it?

At the moment, I don't feel much like writing. My characters are beckoning, my unfinished scenes are playing out in a neverending filmstrip in my mind with all the possible permutations and twists and turns and dialogue, and will continue to do so until I write them down.

But I don't feel like it.

The problem with this is the logic. I started writing not because I wanted to sell a book. I started writing because I loved it.

I've been doing it since I was 5, took a break in high school, and finally returned to it at age 28. I've sat for hours with my eyes glued to the computer screen, goosebumps on my arms, because I love where my story is going or just finished writing a particularly exciting/moving/compelling scene. (This is a big thing for me - I have a hard time sitting still for any extended period of time. For any other reason.) I've experienced the joy of feeling like the book is writing itself, like when I come across a potential plot hole, and realize I unwittingly solved it months ago with a scene to which, at the time, I didn't give much thought. I treasure the hours and hours of driving I have to do for my job, because I get to get paid for sitting and thinking about my novel. I thought up some of my best stuff on these drives.

And I'm so glad the timing has worked out the way it has. If I didn't have writing, I'm convinced I'd go insane in this tiny town where the only things to do are meth and bowling.

Anyway, the point of this post is that, sometimes, I have to remind myself of this. It's easy to get discouraged when all you're getting are rejections (or even if you do get the occasional request for the full MS). It's easy to forget why I started doing this in the first place.

Sometimes, you just need to back away for a while. Publishing is not the means to an end. It's an end, and should be the least enjoyable part of the process - a process that we voluntarily began, because we love it. We must not forget that.

We're writers. Writers write. We write because we can't not.