LE R, HOW DID YOU KNOW? I AM ON A HORSE!

But I digress.

Rejection. More specifically, the question: “What Does Form Rejection Mean to Me?” Answer: Not much to nothing. For a more expansive response, I thought I’d sit down with an old friend and get her take. She is a lady with whom I see eye to eye on such matters, and I am sure her comments will speak for me.

CLF: Some people find rejection unpleasant. So unpleasant it becomes a deterrent. What do you think about that?

LM: Make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!

CLF: See, this is why I had to talk this over with you! You have such a clever way of putting things! Now, another issue commonly associated with rejection is the What If disease. People are tempted to conduct a post-mortem, wonder why, mentally fidget with what could-have-been.

LM: Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done, is done.

CLF: That does make sense. Perhaps what looms largest of all in the writer’s imagination is the issue of failure. One works so hard, always trying to improve, better one’s writing, one’s self. It can be daunting to think the process itself will be the only reward, that one’s efforts will ultimately result in failure.

LM: We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we’ll not fail.

CLF: But there is no denying it, the writer has no guarantees.

LM: Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?

CLF: I’m not saying the lack of guarantees should keep a writer from trying, I’m just saying.

LM: (Silent Disapproval)

CLF: Just sayin’.

LM: Consider it not so deeply.

CLF: Anyway! I don’t actually disagree with you, so let’s move on. You know, I’d like to add, it’s important to be at peace with the fact you can only control so much. You have control over your own actions, your own writing, and nothing else. It is best to simply endeavor to be the best writer you can be and let the chips fall where they may.

LM: Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things.

CLF: Yeah, I kinda thought we might not be on the same page with that. Anything else you’d like to add?

LM: Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

CLF: What?

LM: What? Wait, what did I say?

CLF: Something about blood.

LM: Oh. Yeah. That was about something else.

CLF: Okay. Well, thus concludes my essay on rejection! Thanks to LM for stopping by and so generously doling out her wisdom!