Embracing Rejection
Last week, my wife Natalie and I were invited to guest lecture at WMU’s Direct Encounter with the Arts. During the Q & A section, one student asked, “Does rejection still hurt? I’m scared of my art being rejected.”
I admitted, “Yes! Absolutely!”
Steven King talks about rejection in his book, On Writing. He used to put a nail in the wall, and he would fill it up with his rejection letters. When the nail would hold no more, he would pound in another nail.
After filling his office wall with nails, Steven King finally had a big break: Carrie was accepted to be published.
I’ve let King’s anecdote guide me when I’m dealing with rejection, and I’m thinking about it, again, today. Today I found out I wasn’t accepted into a writing program I desired to pursue. Rejection still stings.
But here’s a positive point about rejection: We still have our work that we submitted!
Usually, the rejection simply marks a period of where we were driven to work really hard, meet a deadline, and then wait. The important step was the “working” period, right?
Even though I didn’t get accepted into a program, I have half of a book of poetry finished! During late October to the end of December, I was a writing machine! The deadline simply got me working.
Embracing rejection allows us to embrace deadlines; and most importantly, when we embrace our work, we are “picking ourselves.”
When we embrace our work, we forget to fear rejection, and forget to eat lunch.
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