4. Rejection Darling? Pay it no mind. The world is savage; let’s just do our nails instead.

 

15^th of May 2013.

Rejected by the Easton Art’s Trail 2013.

I wanted to start a diary, a record of feelings and events… I wanted to write how the new novella I’m writing In the Dark is progressing nicely, that 365 Nights is moving at a steady pace, and how The Murder of Miss O will soon be finished, hopefully. I wanted to write that The Vermilion Chronicles is all wrong and just doesn’t feel right and how at some point I’m just going to start all over again with it and how Primordial Soup needs a lot of work, but I realised none of it matters.

I will write with no hope of getting published. I will paint with no hope of selling, because I don’t know how to do anything else. I will accept that I am no good at anything, be rejected by everything and everyone and it won’t matter.

I can’t do anything else, even if I’m no good at what I do.

I don’t know how to do anything else.

I received a message; let’s call it a message from heaven, from armchair divination and a donut sugar high, it said:

 

ACCEPTANCE IS WRONG!

Keep going,

Keep striving,

Keep marching on to higher ground.

When you accept you don’t just let yourself down,

You let everyone down.

Don’t accept.

Change.

Change the world.

Change everything.

 

My sister is doing a creative writing course at the University of Gloustershire, did I mention that? I tried to go there, to do my masters; I couldn’t go because I couldn’t afford it. It’s almost like my sister is living the life I want to be living, but it’s okay. I can watch… how sad is that?

One of her lessons was about dialogue, and how stories sometimes need a lot more dialogue than people my first think.

Right now I want to put rejections behind me, they don’t matter, I have to keep moving forward or end up just standing still. So instead of crying into a fresh batch of donuts I’m going to study the flow and movement of dialogue… by watching some parliament TV. Those people can talk.

Rejection is just a flower, preparing to make seeds.

 

Dear Issara

 

I am sorry but we would find it almost impossible to sell a novella. The book trade is collapsing with a few known authors and celebs getting all the limelight. We are having trouble selling very good novels by new writers.

 

I am sorry to disappoint you. I know how hard it is to get a rejection.

 

Yours

 

Lynn