Got Another Rejection - Here's the Mindset I'm Forcing Myself to Have

So you read it. It's in the title. I had a publisher who read the first six chapters of the novel that means the most to me and they loved it—well, they loved the first six chapters. It's a novel that's about mental health and I put everything into that book. It saved my life. I've worked on it for five years. It took me so many revisions to even get to the point when a publisher actually wanted to read the entire thing in the first place. I'm trying to be positive, I'm choosing to awknowledge how close I'm getting each time. I'm taking baby steps. Eventually I know I'll get there. But again, as I'm sure all you writers can relate to, it doesn't take away from the disappointment of not quite being there yet. Rejections hurt, they sting.

I'm still hurting because I was so sure it was ready. I had another publisher kindly reject it and talk about how it would inspire young adults going through mental health struggles. They told me they loved the message. They said to find a YA publisher and that's what I did. They gave me more confidence that this other publisher, which is in fact a YA publisher, would want it. But they didn't.

The bright side is they gave me free critiques. They told me that there needed to be a little more research, that not everything added up. And what I really should be doing is thanking them because I wouldn't want it published if there were inaccuracies in it. In the book, there's a lot of cancer themes as well as mental health themes. While I have personal research for the mental health parts, there's still a lot of medical parts that I just sort of put together from books and movies when I should've researched it. So that's what I did. This morning, I went into a deep dive and I learned all these things about leg amputations from cancer and chemotherapies that I never knew before. My character that has cancer, it's like he became more alive to me. I could add more to his story, understand him better. It was magic.

Plus, it reminded me why I'm not giving up. It reminded me how much I truly do love the writing process, even the revision process. I felt so good to make the story better. I went through and gave it a better sense of time as well, which was another critique the publisher gave me.

I have to remind myself too that they didn't hate it. They wrote just as many compliments as critiques. It's so much progress to even be as close as I am.

I don't think the novel was ready. Now that I'm going over it again, maybe it'll be ready the next time around. Maybe not. But I know I'll stick with it. I'll keep revising and sending and getting rejected for as long as it takes until I get accepted. That's how it works. That's why the writing industry fishes out the people that have the wrong motivations. Because only someone who truly writes for the love of it has the commitment and perseverance to keep on in this industry.

Maybe it's not my time to be published. Maybe it's not your time, or maybe it is. Congratulate yourself for whatever step you're on in your journey.

And if you're in the same spot as me, feel free to take a break from querying. I'm just going to enjoy the writing for a while and finish up some of my books before submitting again.

If you've gotten rejected 96 times like me (yes, I counted; it's every rejection I've ever gotten, including works that aren't novels), and you're still going, then trust me, writing is what you're meant to do.