Damn. Another one. Now, email rejection letters bring you to new lows twice as fast! You’re told to build a thick skin, as a writer, and you do. You submit to edits and re-edits and you drink lots of coffee and sometimes you cry. But you get up, again, and you write some more words down. Sometimes they make sense and sometimes more of them come. Other times you throw away that napkin you wrote on, or your iPad crashes and they’re gone forever. What matters is that you’re doing it, they say.
But sometimes, all you want to hear is a “yes” or someone who knows what they’re talking about say you’re worth reading. Sometimes it’s too hard to do anything after one more “no.” You drink yourself into a stupor, again, and that helps a little.
It doesn’t get any better when you do get a “yes.” You’re still just as insecure, you’re still not sure you’re doing the right thing. Maybe it’s all a waste of time, and you’ll look back at your life and sadly shake your head. You don’t want to think the words FAILED WRITER but you do, all the time. Does anyone want to read this mumbo jumbo? You look back at something you wrote last year and you cringe at how awful it is. Did you really send that shit to someone? Then you write something better, and you send it out into the world again with a held breath and the lingering stale scent of beer.
Roads on Her Face 