Dealing With Rejections
I can't remember the last time I wrote a blog. You might notice that I have posted a new blog post every few weeks or so, but that is not what I meant. I can't remember the last time I wrote a blog that was purely for my own pleasant -- a string of unadulterated thoughts made visible in the forms of words on your device, flowing from my restless fingertips.
The blog posts that have been posted here for the last two years were work. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy crafting them out, but they had to be checked and edited by the organizations that I produced those for. They served a purpose. There was a team behind those blog posts. I missed the feeling of having nothing between you and the world as you publish your inner thoughts, which was the reason why I made that first leap into blogging in the first place.
And thus, here I am. Back in the flesh -- the digital flesh that is. Now, I didn't plan on blogging again, not the way I used to. I have been caught up with my vlogs. Making videos takes up a big chunk of your time. And to be frank, I have also been lazy. I was busy writing my first novel that I didn't cast aside time to write anything else. Let me tell you, writing a novel is exhausting. I loved every moment of it, but it demands your attention in a way that it leaves little room for anything else.
My first novel is the pivotal player that led me here, in front of my laptop, churning out a blog post at 1 A.M. Just like many other aspiring authors since the beginning of time, I embarked on a new journey after I finished my novel; the dreaded query stage. I poured out my heart into the manuscript, polished and polished, sent out to beta readers and beared the heartache that came with the critiques, polished it again, and I finally was ready to send it out to agents. I just needed to wave my magic wand and whoosh, the most incredible query letter in the world would appear. Only, it wasn't that.
I had absolutely no idea how to write a query. It was a daunting task -- condensing a 94,000-word novel into a few paragraphs, hoping that it would be attractive enough to hook an agent or two. It was dreadful. I almost lost my wits thinking about it. But alas, I wrote the query. I should've sent it out to friends for feedback, but I only sent it out to two. One of them said it looked good, so I started going to my Yahoo Mail tab and sent it off to the list of agents that I compiled.
At first, it felt good; exhilarating, even. I finally finished my first novel, and I was setting it out there to run amok into the world. People are finally reading what I have spent countless hours writing with a vexing backpain. And then, the insecurity and self-doubt started creeping in. It's true when they say that writers are insecure creatures. I have never found this to be more true than when I first started to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I've considered deleting the then-unfinished manuscript and smashed my laptop into a bite-size chunks just so that the atrocious monstrosity that was my story could be obliterated from this beautiful world. I'm glad I didn't. But the insecurity is a story for another time. This one is about rejections.
I sent out my query to the first batch of agents last week. I bounced between excitement and nervousness like a volleyball on the beach in the summer. I'm the type of person that believed that to stay too hopeful is a quick path to heartache and disappointment. The more hopeful you are, the more disappointed you will become when things don't go your way. Cynical, that is what I am. I would really rather nod and say, "Yup, I expected my house to burn down", rather than standing on my lawn, asking God why that happened to me. To hope is to disappoint; at least that is my motto.
All of that didn't blanket me from how I felt when I received my first rejection letter from one of the agents. I thought she and I had so much in common when it came to literature. She loves Sarah J. Maas, so do I. Shouldn't she love my query because we are like book twins? Apparently not. It was a form rejection. I didn't pique her interest. Time to move on.
Let me tell you something. I have lived a sheltered life. Before this, I hadn't dealt much with rejections. Even though I don't have the privilege of a cis white male, I do have privilege of being born as in a middle-class and educated. I got the jobs that I wanted. I got the scholarships and opportunities that I applied for. But no, this time, life doesn't hand me what I wanted on a platter like it used to. I was hit with a rejection; denied of the one of the only things that I've truly wanted in my life. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. I was confused. I expected that I would be rejected, and I thought I would be fine with it. I was, more or less. But I felt exhausted -- hopeless. Being told, "No, thanks" isn't as easy to brush off as I thought it would be. It stung like a tiny baby bee; not enough for me to cry out in pain, but enough to put me in a daze.
A day or two went by. The feelings faded. Chinese New Year crept in and I all but forgot about the first rejection form. The city is celebrating yet another festivity. I have slept. I have stayed home. I have eaten. I have read. The city is quiet. But my mind has never been quiet. It hasn't been quiet since that night I got the email, and I'm not sure if it has ever been quiet at all. But I was doing fine. I was no longer freaking out -- panicking on what to do if all the agents would come back to me with another "No, thanks".
And then, as Lady Luck would have it, I got another email. No, Lady Luck didn't like me, because it was another rejection form. "It's not what I'm looking for at the moment," the email read. Of course not. Another phantom pat on the back to usher me along. No reason to stick around here. Now the feeling, or lack of feeling, is not as intense as it was before, but it did send me into a flurry of activity, one of which is to write this blog.
Even though I'm not a published author (YET), I am still a writer. I have made a living out of writing, and it's something that I'll always love doing. When hit with this emotional turmoil, I turned to the one thing that has always worked for me: writing.
At this point, you might scroll back to the title and ask yourself, how is this about dealing with rejections? I assure you that the title is not a clickbait. I'm going to let you in on this; I deal with the newfound rejections one email at a time, one word at a time, one breath at a time. I don't let it cripple me. I thought of ways to get around the rejections. In my case, weighing the option of self-publishing should all agent in the world decide to cast me aside like an unwanted seashell in the beach. After all, I'm just one shell out of millions awaiting to be picked up with someone who enjoys collecting shells and polishes them.
But the main thing to keep in mind is to not let it discourage you. It's disheartening, I understand that, but go back to doing what you love to remind yourself that this is all worth it. It's one rejection, or maybe two. Even if it's a hundred rejections, it's not the end of the world. It's only the end if you let it become the end. It would only the end of my writing career if I hung up my keyboard. And yet, here I am, still writing. I'm still doing what I love despite people not believing in my words.
If it turns out that my words are not good enough, I can always go back and polish them. If you get rejected and are told that you're not good enough, remember that they're talking about the "present" you. The "future" you is still uncertain; up in the air. You can let their rejection inject its poison into your heart until you can't help but burn your ballet shoes or whatever it is that you hold dear, or you can keep on doing what you love and look to better yourself.
Giraffes don't spend their lives lying on the earth just because they fall down a few times when they are born. The little ones just keep on getting up until they get the hang of it. The next time you feel like giving up, think of the little giraffes. Rejection is just one person's opinion. It doesn't define who you are or who you're going to be. Only you can do that. So keep on doing that thing that you love even when the world doesn't believe in you. Who knows, maybe one day, the world will turn on its head and see the brightness that you've been carrying all along.
With that said, giraffes are going extinct. I don't exactly know what we can do to prevent them from going extinct, but please mind your carbon footprint. This is because of global warming after all.
Love, Cath
xx
The blog posts that have been posted here for the last two years were work. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy crafting them out, but they had to be checked and edited by the organizations that I produced those for. They served a purpose. There was a team behind those blog posts. I missed the feeling of having nothing between you and the world as you publish your inner thoughts, which was the reason why I made that first leap into blogging in the first place.
And thus, here I am. Back in the flesh -- the digital flesh that is. Now, I didn't plan on blogging again, not the way I used to. I have been caught up with my vlogs. Making videos takes up a big chunk of your time. And to be frank, I have also been lazy. I was busy writing my first novel that I didn't cast aside time to write anything else. Let me tell you, writing a novel is exhausting. I loved every moment of it, but it demands your attention in a way that it leaves little room for anything else.
My first novel is the pivotal player that led me here, in front of my laptop, churning out a blog post at 1 A.M. Just like many other aspiring authors since the beginning of time, I embarked on a new journey after I finished my novel; the dreaded query stage. I poured out my heart into the manuscript, polished and polished, sent out to beta readers and beared the heartache that came with the critiques, polished it again, and I finally was ready to send it out to agents. I just needed to wave my magic wand and whoosh, the most incredible query letter in the world would appear. Only, it wasn't that.
I had absolutely no idea how to write a query. It was a daunting task -- condensing a 94,000-word novel into a few paragraphs, hoping that it would be attractive enough to hook an agent or two. It was dreadful. I almost lost my wits thinking about it. But alas, I wrote the query. I should've sent it out to friends for feedback, but I only sent it out to two. One of them said it looked good, so I started going to my Yahoo Mail tab and sent it off to the list of agents that I compiled.
At first, it felt good; exhilarating, even. I finally finished my first novel, and I was setting it out there to run amok into the world. People are finally reading what I have spent countless hours writing with a vexing backpain. And then, the insecurity and self-doubt started creeping in. It's true when they say that writers are insecure creatures. I have never found this to be more true than when I first started to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I've considered deleting the then-unfinished manuscript and smashed my laptop into a bite-size chunks just so that the atrocious monstrosity that was my story could be obliterated from this beautiful world. I'm glad I didn't. But the insecurity is a story for another time. This one is about rejections.
I sent out my query to the first batch of agents last week. I bounced between excitement and nervousness like a volleyball on the beach in the summer. I'm the type of person that believed that to stay too hopeful is a quick path to heartache and disappointment. The more hopeful you are, the more disappointed you will become when things don't go your way. Cynical, that is what I am. I would really rather nod and say, "Yup, I expected my house to burn down", rather than standing on my lawn, asking God why that happened to me. To hope is to disappoint; at least that is my motto.
All of that didn't blanket me from how I felt when I received my first rejection letter from one of the agents. I thought she and I had so much in common when it came to literature. She loves Sarah J. Maas, so do I. Shouldn't she love my query because we are like book twins? Apparently not. It was a form rejection. I didn't pique her interest. Time to move on.
Let me tell you something. I have lived a sheltered life. Before this, I hadn't dealt much with rejections. Even though I don't have the privilege of a cis white male, I do have privilege of being born as in a middle-class and educated. I got the jobs that I wanted. I got the scholarships and opportunities that I applied for. But no, this time, life doesn't hand me what I wanted on a platter like it used to. I was hit with a rejection; denied of the one of the only things that I've truly wanted in my life. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. I was confused. I expected that I would be rejected, and I thought I would be fine with it. I was, more or less. But I felt exhausted -- hopeless. Being told, "No, thanks" isn't as easy to brush off as I thought it would be. It stung like a tiny baby bee; not enough for me to cry out in pain, but enough to put me in a daze.
A day or two went by. The feelings faded. Chinese New Year crept in and I all but forgot about the first rejection form. The city is celebrating yet another festivity. I have slept. I have stayed home. I have eaten. I have read. The city is quiet. But my mind has never been quiet. It hasn't been quiet since that night I got the email, and I'm not sure if it has ever been quiet at all. But I was doing fine. I was no longer freaking out -- panicking on what to do if all the agents would come back to me with another "No, thanks".
And then, as Lady Luck would have it, I got another email. No, Lady Luck didn't like me, because it was another rejection form. "It's not what I'm looking for at the moment," the email read. Of course not. Another phantom pat on the back to usher me along. No reason to stick around here. Now the feeling, or lack of feeling, is not as intense as it was before, but it did send me into a flurry of activity, one of which is to write this blog.
Even though I'm not a published author (YET), I am still a writer. I have made a living out of writing, and it's something that I'll always love doing. When hit with this emotional turmoil, I turned to the one thing that has always worked for me: writing.
At this point, you might scroll back to the title and ask yourself, how is this about dealing with rejections? I assure you that the title is not a clickbait. I'm going to let you in on this; I deal with the newfound rejections one email at a time, one word at a time, one breath at a time. I don't let it cripple me. I thought of ways to get around the rejections. In my case, weighing the option of self-publishing should all agent in the world decide to cast me aside like an unwanted seashell in the beach. After all, I'm just one shell out of millions awaiting to be picked up with someone who enjoys collecting shells and polishes them.
But the main thing to keep in mind is to not let it discourage you. It's disheartening, I understand that, but go back to doing what you love to remind yourself that this is all worth it. It's one rejection, or maybe two. Even if it's a hundred rejections, it's not the end of the world. It's only the end if you let it become the end. It would only the end of my writing career if I hung up my keyboard. And yet, here I am, still writing. I'm still doing what I love despite people not believing in my words.
If it turns out that my words are not good enough, I can always go back and polish them. If you get rejected and are told that you're not good enough, remember that they're talking about the "present" you. The "future" you is still uncertain; up in the air. You can let their rejection inject its poison into your heart until you can't help but burn your ballet shoes or whatever it is that you hold dear, or you can keep on doing what you love and look to better yourself.
Giraffes don't spend their lives lying on the earth just because they fall down a few times when they are born. The little ones just keep on getting up until they get the hang of it. The next time you feel like giving up, think of the little giraffes. Rejection is just one person's opinion. It doesn't define who you are or who you're going to be. Only you can do that. So keep on doing that thing that you love even when the world doesn't believe in you. Who knows, maybe one day, the world will turn on its head and see the brightness that you've been carrying all along.
With that said, giraffes are going extinct. I don't exactly know what we can do to prevent them from going extinct, but please mind your carbon footprint. This is because of global warming after all.
Love, Cath
xx
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