Today I received a rejection slip from an editor, the second out of twelve publishers that I queried. Determined not to let it get me down, I went right back to the drawing board, researching another possible publisher. Rob said that I was handling it well. I told him that it's all part of the process. But deep down inside, it still hurts. Here are ten famous writers' quotes on rejection slips.
1. "This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it to the editor that can appreciate my work and has simply come back stamped "Not at this address". Just keep looking for the right address." (Barbara Kingsolver)
2. "Rejection slips, or form letters, however, tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil -- but there is no way around them." (Isaac Asimov)
3. "I love rejection slips. They show me I try." (Sylvia Plath)
4. "You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance." (Ray Bradbury)
5. "To ward off a feeling of failure, she joked that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejection slips, which she chose not to see as messages to stop, but rather as tickets to the game." (Anita Shreve)
6. "A wounded deer leaps the highest." (Emily Dickinson)
7. "Rejected pieces aren't failures; unwritten pieces are." (Greg Daugherty)
8. "All great innovations are built on rejections." (Louis Ferdinand Celine)
9. "You are never given a dream without being given the power to make it true." (Richard Bach)
10. "I discovered that rejection are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgement and to say in his heart of hearts: "To hell with you." (Saul Bellow)
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