Don't Give Up The Day Job, Miss Writer

Perseverance is the key. I didn't go into this writerly business with any deluded ideas - that I'd be whisked up by a huge publisher and become the coolest thing to read. No way. The rejections had to happen. They did, and they do still happen. That's fine. So I had a bit of an issue with the rejection emails themselves as per this post that I wrote about it but I've dealt with that - it's just the way these things work. But now, now rejection is the daily deal and there's not even a ratio of no to yes, because there are no yeses.

People say Keep On Going and that's brilliant that folks are being so supportive, but surely, just logically even, it's getting to the point where I should just be getting ready to give up the ghost. So I Google 'writers who gave up' and here is what I find:

That Teetering Tower Of Rejections Threatens To Crush You And Your Cats
You know by now if you’re at least a little bit good. You know because someone’s told you. Or because you got an acceptance on a short story or even a nice rejection. Or because in your heart you’ve cast aside the fog and seen into the truth of the matter: “I’m not great, but I’m good, and I can damn sure get better.”
Then again, maybe you look over at the end of your desk and you see it. The rejections. All 9,000 of them. Not a single acceptance nestled in there, like a glittering brooch inside the nest of a foul diarrhea-having bird. You’ve sent your work to the far flung corners of the literary world — editors, agents, lit mags, Field & Stream — and it always returns with a big red stamp across it that reads, FUCK NO.
By now, just by dint of taking so many shots at the hoop one of them should have gone through the little hole. If you’re having no luck, it might be time to set aside childish whims. - terribleminds.com


I'm clinging to that first paragraph, but I really feel like I'm holding on by the ends of my finger nails (albeit nicely manicured finger nails), and it's all a bit precarious. I'm still going, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is really the game for me.

The great news is that a couple of weeks ago I received two rejections from lovely people who seemed to actually have read my work and the response was that my writing didn't fit. This is great. This is improvement. Now I either have to find a place for my poetry and prose to fit, or else I make it fit.

Baby steps.