“Your story was very atmospheric, but it was too confusing to get any enjoyment out of reading it.” That was the first personal rejection I ever received. It was only there for a few seconds, glaring at me from my iPhone inbox, but it stung like acid and burned into my memory just the same. I could hear the beat of my heart as I deleted the message, logged into Submittable with shaking fingers, and withdrew every copy of that story I had on submission. That was the end of “Yellow Light,” a deeply personal flash grown from the depths of my suicidal ideation. I wouldn't write again for many months. Looking back, I’m not even sure why I opened the email. I had a policy back then to never read rejections. Maybe I did it because I wanted to be like the writers on Twitter who worshiped their rejections, accumulating them like others accumulate shoes or cars or sexual partners. I got two rejections, said Writer A. Well, I got two hundred, said Writer B, and everyone agreed Writer B was more impressive. So far, I’ve only had 18 rejections. To put it another way, 18 separate people have read my work and concluded that I wasn’t good enough. In other words, I’ve received 18 emails from 18 people, all of which confirmed my very worst fear. The Oxford Dictionary defines rejection as “the dismissing or refusing of a proposal or idea.” Well, I reject that. In the Ochsner Dictionary, if such a thing were to exist, the entry would look something like this: re·jec·tion /rəˈjekSH(ə)n/ - noun To peel the armor from your heart in the face of another, only for them to snatch the armor from your open palm and stab you with it. I’ve been stabbed 18 times by 18 different people, but I find the wounds growing shallower and shallower. The heart, it seems, has caught on to my game of self destruction. Who knows. Maybe, one day, I too will measure wealth in rejection. Maybe, one day, I won't fear the sting. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not a bad thing to be happy about rejections. It’s probably a whole lot healthier than what I do. But if you’re like me, and the rejections in your inbox are insta-deleted, or a click into your “All Submissions” tab fills you with gray-labeled despair, please don’t think you’re doing something wrong. You don’t need to feel proud of being rejected. You just need to keep submitting. “Yellow Light” never saw the light of day. But “The Reaper Watches, Laughs,” a deeply personal poem also about suicidal ideation, did. “Yellow Light” was too confusing. But so was “Hollow Things,” a flash in which the main character is visited by a ghost from the future and swallowed by a collar with teeth, and not only was “Hollow Things” published, but they paid me money to do it. And trust me. Even if you survive a million rejections, that first acceptance is so worth the pain. Keep on writing your truth, and someday, I promise you, it will be seen.
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