I think I’d rather get a rejection than all of those editors who don’t reply at all. That stinks.

Luckily, early on in my Freelancing career I learned to distance myself from most of my writings. In the very beginning I took the rejections personally. (Thank goodness it only lasted a very short time.) Then I learned that editors and publishers know what they want and if we do not deliver what they have conjured up in their own mind’s eye… well than, our work, not us, but our work, is rejected.

That seems to be a difficult thing for new writers to wrap their minds around. Theses rejections are not personal. They are a rejection of the piece of wordplay that is sitting in front of an editor or publisher. It is not a rejection of you as a person.

I remember taking a rejection too personal once.
I had ventured out of my safety zone and tried my hand at a short story. When the reviews came back in I was brought to tears. The shock came when someone said, “Is that woman really that weak or is that man really that much of a cad?” okay, I had to answer yes to both questions, because it was the truth … the reason it hurt was because it was more then a short short. It was the first chapter to my manuscript and it was an autobiographical chapter.

That was 6 years ago and although it hurt for a little while I realized that if that was the reader’s response then I had fully gotten across the characters I had intended upon introducing to the readers. I learned so well that when I submitted my romance novella manuscript to a publisher who liked it … I took it on the cuff when here editor rejected it.
There is always another editing and another submission for it.