Why writers need rejection (and how it could get you published)

If you’re anything like me, you won’t be a stranger to this word. In fact, if you don’t know it intimately then you’re doing something wrong and are probably floating through life without actually living.

Rejection and I have actually become quite close over the years. Not best friends, certainly, but we know each other well enough to share a beer or two, having grown up together from those days where I was your average teenager with a spectacularly bad dating record, to that time I finally got a date with a real-life girl only to be dumped at the end because the cinema playing Four Weddings & a Funeral happened to be full and I took her to see Beverly Hills Cop III instead.

Could have been worse...

Thankfully these days the turn-downs are slightly more impressive. In the past couple of weeks alone I’ve taken some pretty high-level hits from everyone, including potential employers, a potential literary agent, a couple of well-regarded fanzines, and even a powerhouse publisher.

And while the rejections keep on coming, I actually don’t mind. In fact, I’ve learned to love them. Because they are ABSOLUTELY necessary.