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| xenith >> editorials >> the art of rejection: on being unafraid to write |
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The Art of Rejection: On Being Unafraid to Write by Stacy Mintzer Herlihy In the movie Defending Your Life, the main character is dead and has been sent to purgatory. In order to avoid returning to Earth again, he must convince a judge that there were many moments in his life where he faced and overcame his fears. If I were a character in that movie, I wouldn’t have many moments to use in my own defense. Until this year. At thirty-four, I have at last stared my own worst fear directly in the eyes and watched it blink. As a child, I had fantasies of picking up a book with my name once I learned to read. My elementary school years were spent immersed in books and magazines and libraries. The desire to write as well as read began in eighth grade English when I had a teacher who made our class complete a one page writing assignment each week. Others students grumbled endlessly, but I loved it. During that term I quickly realized writing was the easiest thing I’d ever done. Having read so much I knew words the way many teenagers knew every rock star or movie actress. I found I somehow instinctively knew how to construct a good, grammatically correct essay full of sentences that said exactly what I wanted to say. The social awkwardness that haunted my childhood dropped away when I wrote and was replaced with a delicious sense of thrilling competence. Yet after I left school for the wider world, for years, I didn’t even put many thoughts to paper, let alone submit them somewhere. Why? Because I was afraid. I was afraid that my work would be awful. I was afraid that I would never get published. I was afraid that editors would tell me to take up goat farming or demand that I never buy a pen again. I was afraid that my email inbox would be one long yellow column of rejection letters. Most of all I was afraid of rejection. For a few people, the kind of epiphany that shakes up their lives like a cement mixer comes when they celebrate a birthday with a zero or five at the end. Or maybe someone close to them comes down with a terrible illness and mortality seems a bit nearer. For me, the turning point--the moment where I knew I had to do something about the promises I’d made to myself as a child--came six months after I gave birth. I looked down into my small daughter’s eyes and I thought about where I wanted to be when she grew up. Did I want to be the kind of person who had a tool and did not use it? Did I want to be the kind of mother who let the pretty dreams of her youth fade away into nothing? Did I really want to be a parent who let fear stand in the way of success? Since then I’ve written as much as I can, often when my daughter sleeps. So far I’ve completed more than two dozen non-fiction articles on topics that I know and care about deeply. Thirteen of them have been accepted for publication. Along the way I’ve accumulated a lot of rejection slips. You know what? The rejections were painful. But the satisfaction I found from the articles I’ve seen published far outweighed the sting of being rebuffed. I no longer see each rejection letter as a mark of terrible failure. Instead I read the letters and feel happy because they are a proud sign of the courage I wasn’t sure was there before. That’s the advice I plan to give my daughter when she’s old enough to understand it. It’s the best suggestion I can give anyone else. Whatever you do--go for a job interview, dance in public, give birth, create art and, yes, even begin the writing career you’ve dreamed about since you were nine--the first step is the hardest and most important. You have to be brave. Even if you don’t get the job or the sculpture falls to the floor after you finished it. Even if it’s two in the morning and you just know Louisa May Alcott never ever had writer’s block. At least you have the satisfaction of knowing you tried to do something. Once you have that feeling to remember it gets much easier to find the audacity and confidence to try again. Of all the things writing has taught me so far, that is the one thing I cherish the most: do not be afraid. I once saw a ballerina fall flat on her backside at the end of what was supposed to be an airy and effortless leap. The applause when she got up and started dancing again was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.
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