Reframing Rejection
Writers get rejected. That's how it goes. Someone else is picked for a project. A different style of work is a better "fit" in some intangible way. Your work wasn't quite what they were looking for. Recently, I've heard "no" again, after a spell of silence. I didn't enjoy it -- but I did enjoy hearing something. My family upbringing trained me to say, "Well, that's a setback, but I can get back on track" -- and resume doing whatever I was doing, only more of it and for longer hours. But not this time. Instead of powering through a blue period by pretending I didn't get rejected or otherwise relying on willpower, I'm reframing , which is a fancy-pants way of saying "looking at things from a new perspective." Rejection is information. I can learn something from it. At the same time, I don't have to kill myself trying to figure out "what this means." A rejection might tell me that 1. before I sen