A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-One-Hundred-And-Twenty-Six

I feel quite good about the work I am doing right now, in terms of the writing itself, but I am still quite frustrated with things in other ways.  It feels important to admit, for example, that I find rejection to be very difficult, and that much of, for me, what is most upsetting, is not simply getting a rejection but much of the structure that is built around the process and the inscrutability of it, as well.  I find it impossible not to be deeply impacted when I get a rejection, but I also know that the reality is, I need to send out work and can't expect anything to change, really.  I need a way to feel some sense of actual success towards my publishing and career goals, and those can't be measured by the results I have control over.  Sending out more work would only matter if I had evidence that my rejection rate remained the same and I could get a certain number of acceptances for every x number submissions I sent out, but that's not been my experience with sending out work.  I know that I am not able to handle the rejection well, but I also know that I need to be sending out work, that quitting and not trying to get the work published would just feel like giving in and accepting some kind of doom, but I am also realistically aware that I don't have the internal resources to alter my response to rejection.  It is something I have attempted to do many times and in many different ways, and it doesn't help me.  Indeed, there is a very large part of me that wants to say that being alright with rejection is not good, that it should hurt, that even if I were able to convince myself to not care, it would be a lie I was telling myself.  I don't claim any of this is healthy or good, of course, and I am pretty aware that it is probably not, but that doesn't make it possible for me to do anything about, either.

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