(no subject)
It's funny, really. Because I'm sitting here in the wake of my first ever rejection letter, and yet I'm smiling.
I don't even know why, completely. Part of me feels like I should be sobbing at this lost chance. But then another part of me remembers that last day of class at Stanford, when Matt pulled out his folder of shame and showed us his rejection letters, passing them around the table for everyone to read and absorb. We felt his pain through the lines they wrote.
I remember Grisha talking about how he keeps his first ever acceptance letter with him at all times, to give him inspiration or comfort or whatever he needs. And it's funny, because I've been thinking about printing out the e-mail Julie sent me and doing the same thing with it.
Because I realized, my first rejection doesn't just mean my first rejection. It also means the first time I tried. The first time where there was a chance that what would be coming in the mail was an acceptance. It was a taste of greatness, even for a moment. When I saw who the letter was from, adrenaline rushed through me and settled in the pit of my stomach as I scanned the message, looking for the yes or the no. For half a second I thought, "This is it!" But when it wasn't, I realized that that didn't matter -- the feeling I'd had for that half a second was good enough to keep me writing.
And as far as I can tell, my story wasn't rejected because the writing was bad. In fact, Julie had a lot of things good to say for it. The main thing she mentioned in why my story wasn't accepted was that it strayed from the topic of polar science, and that she had to give room in the anthology to people whose plots had focused more around the direct sciences. Which is understandable, considering that I know nothing about polar science and this anthology is supposed to be used as a teaching tool in science classrooms.
If anything, this rejection has encouraged me. I feel like so much more of a writer now that I can say "Look here, see this, this was the letter where I got rejected." Because what it really means is, "Look here, see this, this was the letter where I could've been accepted."
I don't even know why, completely. Part of me feels like I should be sobbing at this lost chance. But then another part of me remembers that last day of class at Stanford, when Matt pulled out his folder of shame and showed us his rejection letters, passing them around the table for everyone to read and absorb. We felt his pain through the lines they wrote.
I remember Grisha talking about how he keeps his first ever acceptance letter with him at all times, to give him inspiration or comfort or whatever he needs. And it's funny, because I've been thinking about printing out the e-mail Julie sent me and doing the same thing with it.
Because I realized, my first rejection doesn't just mean my first rejection. It also means the first time I tried. The first time where there was a chance that what would be coming in the mail was an acceptance. It was a taste of greatness, even for a moment. When I saw who the letter was from, adrenaline rushed through me and settled in the pit of my stomach as I scanned the message, looking for the yes or the no. For half a second I thought, "This is it!" But when it wasn't, I realized that that didn't matter -- the feeling I'd had for that half a second was good enough to keep me writing.
And as far as I can tell, my story wasn't rejected because the writing was bad. In fact, Julie had a lot of things good to say for it. The main thing she mentioned in why my story wasn't accepted was that it strayed from the topic of polar science, and that she had to give room in the anthology to people whose plots had focused more around the direct sciences. Which is understandable, considering that I know nothing about polar science and this anthology is supposed to be used as a teaching tool in science classrooms.
If anything, this rejection has encouraged me. I feel like so much more of a writer now that I can say "Look here, see this, this was the letter where I got rejected." Because what it really means is, "Look here, see this, this was the letter where I could've been accepted."