The Rejection Wall
—The Rejection Wall—
There it is. 2024 and still growing.
I got the idea—to print and paste to the wall every rejection letter—from a Colum McCann book, Letters to a Young Writer. I thought it was brilliant. A little discouraging, but brilliant. What better way to motivate yourself than to be constantly reminded of your failure and/or those who doubted your work? **Nervous chuckle**
It’s a visual reminder for me to press on, to—sigh—brave again and again and again the brutally humbling query storm. Like I’ve said before, I believe in my work. The Rejection Wall forces me to keep believing. It’s also a way to share with my students that it’s okay to fail. That I—and all of your teachers—fail sometimes. We try hard to achieve something, and sometimes it just doesn’t come to pass. It’s a tough reality pill to swallow, but hey, it’s reality; reality has the tendency to disappoint. But… GRIT. Remember grit. It’s pivotal, the operative word in this mess. You need the skill, the talent; you need a solid product. But you also need to keep going, keep believing. You need grit.
Each “no” makes room for the one “yes”. My therapist shared that with me this week. He was once a door-to-door salesman. Querying authors is kind of like that. Except sometimes you never even hear a “no”. Just the silent void of the unknown.
Rejection is tough, no matter the context. It stings every time. But it makes you stronger, thickens your skin. Do your damndest to embrace it, to stare it in the face and say: “Nah, bruh. Not today. Okay maybe a little bit, but then nah, I cancel you.”
I hope you conquered today.
-Taylor
TJH -- 01.10.2024