Before I wrote The Patron Saint of Butterflies and Hershey Herself, I bought a lot of books about writing. Each time, before I did anything else, I always flipped to the section that relayed something about the author’s rejection process. I wanted to know how long it had taken them to get published, how many rejections they had gotten, and how they managed to pick themselves up after being crushed over and over again.

This link is going to be my contribution to the rejection part of writing - and how to move past it.

APPRECIATE YOUR HARD WORK - ALWAYS!!

If you have gotten to the point where your stuff is good enough to send out to agents and/or publishing houses, you are already one step ahead of a lot of other people. Congratulate yourself! Getting your manuscript spit-shined and polished takes a great deal of work. Even if it gets rejected, it is still being seen which, in the world of writing, is everything.

LEARN NOT TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY

I cried like a baby the first few (okay, maybe twenty or so) rejections I got. There’s nothing fun about anyone saying no. Especially when it’s your work, and you’ve grown so attached to it you feel like it’s another appendage growing out of the side of your body. But one of the most important things I learned about rejections - and this comes with experience, so be patient with yourself - was not to take them personally. They were not saying that I, Cecilia Galante, should hightail it to the nearest circus and give up writing altogether. They simply stated that the story I had written did not work. Period.

FIND THE PEARL INSIDE THE OYSTER

By the time I made it past the form letter rejections (complete with stamped signatures which sometimes ended halfway off the page), graduating to the real rejection letters, which included a few paragraphs and a real, inked signature on the bottom, I had learned a few things. One of them was that real rejection letters contained little bits of gold sprinkled throughout - pieces of advice that, after the discouragement faded a little, I was able to sit and really think about. Editors have read a lot of stories. If they take the time to sit down and write you a letter about why your book doesn’t work, you would be wise to pay attention.

Another thing I learned about the rejection process is that it’s a long one. And, that if you’re hell-bent on sitting up straight and hanging on for the long-haul, it will end. THE CALL will one day come. It will. You gotta go through the mud and the muck to get to the prize. You have to. There’s just no other way around it. So hang on tight and don’t let it knock you down. It will be that much more worth it when you finally get there.

DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO UNTIL YOU STOP FEELING SAD. AND THEN START WRITING AGAIN.

I’m a crier. That’s what I do when I feel discouraged or crushed beyond recognition. After the crying stops, vast quantities of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey helps, (eaten in bed of course), followed by several celebrity-filled trashy magazines, and a hot bath. I don’t even look in my computer’s direction. Not once. Not even an iota.

Until I have to again. Until the thing that is deep inside, under my ribcage, next to my heart, the thing that makes more sense to me than anything else in the entire world, beckons me forward.

I don’t have to feel like an author when I sit back down in my chair. Hell, I don’t even have to feel like a writer when I turn my computer back on and watch it glow blue in front of me. All I have to do is write.

One of my three-year old daughter’s favorite movies is Finding Nemo. I’ve watched it with her at least eighteen times. Her favorite part is when the sea turtles carry Dorrie and Marlin on their backs to Australia. My favorite part is when Dorrie and Marlin are swimming down to the deepest part of the ocean. Marlin is terrified because they can’t see anything, and to cheer him up, Dorrie starts singing that little song: “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do you do? You sw - im!”

Know that much of your writing work will feel like you are swimming in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean.

It’s okay.

You don’t have to see to write.

Just write.