I got rejected
And I feel pretty good about it.
I should preface this by saying I didn't ask anyone out. This rejection was of the literary kind.
I like writing. It's always been something that I've been interested in. I find it therapeutic, in a way.
Writing, at the moment, isn't something I'd like to pursue as a career. It's more of a hobby. A fun, therapeutic, and sometimes annoying one, but a hobby, nonetheless.
But still, I would like to get published. Get my writing out there. Build a small audience of people who like my writing at least a fraction as much as I do.
So I tried just that. I wrote a flash fiction piece and sent it off to a few independent literary magazines.
And I just received my first rejection.
It was your, as I understand it, average, cookie-cutter rejection letter. Something like "Thank you for thinking about us, we appreciate being able to read your work, but we're not going to publish you." Nothing fancy, but also nothing mean. It was also a fast response, which I really appreciated.
And, for some reason, it felt amazing. More than anything, I think I'm just really proud of myself for actually going for it. I remember agonizing for like ten minutes on whether or not I should send it. I was like "Maybe I should just wait until tomorrow..." But I knew that that would continue until a few days passed, then a week, and then a month and before I would know it, I wouldn't have sent anything.
So I just went "screw it" and sent it. What's the worse that can happen? Well, rejection, apparently.
Still, I took a step forward for my goal and I'm proud of myself for doing so.
Hopefully I will get published one of these days. Until then, I'll continue writing and sending my work out.