Ups and Downs

Allow me to share a quick summary of the contrast of my last two months of writing and submissions.

January successes: A full manuscript request from a fairly major agency. Two short-list notifications from pro-paying publications. Two personal rejections (as opposed to form letter rejections) from other publishers. One new short story completed and submitted, which is a monthly goal I set this year. Nine blog posts, which means I kept up with the posting schedule I created for myself.

February failures: The full manuscript was turned down by the agency. One of the short-listed stories was declined. Three other publishers sent form letters. I’ve been hit with writer’s block and made very little progress on my second short story for the year. And the list of writers advancing to the second round in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award list came out today--they forgot to include my name on it.

So what’s with the whining? you ask.

Nothing. Because I have nothing to whine about it.

With every success and every failure you make, you have a choice. With success, you can say, “Eh, good enough,” and quit pushing forward. With failure, you can say, “Eh, I suck at this,” and quit trying altogether.

Either way, if you quit chasing your dream, it’s because you make the active decision to do so.

I’m not going to look at the first two weeks of this month and decide to give up just because there have been a couple of setbacks. To me, that would be just as absurd as looking at January and deciding I’m on the right track so I can just take a break and let nature take its course.

So what’s next?

Tonight, I take the three form letter rejections, file them away, and then reread and resubmit the three rejected short stories. Now that I’m officially out of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, I have to resume my quest for finding an agent for the novel. Five queries by the end of the month isn’t a preposterous, unachievable goal. The short story that I’m “stuck” with right now is already 1200 words long. It’s not like I can’t write another 2000-3000 this weekend and finish it up.

I wrote this post hoping to show you that the world doesn’t end if you hit the wall a couple of times. Failing doesn’t kill you. It doesn’t need to crush your spirit either. Giving up does that. And I’m not capable of giving up at this point.

I hope you’re not either.