Refreshed…renewed…rejuvenated…relaxed…

Rejected.

Well, folks, I’m in the midst of a querying storm, and you know what that means. Lots of rejections. It’s really difficult sometimes not to feel defeated when that “Dear Author” email shows up in the ol’ inbox. When I see I have a new email, I seriously cringe, and peek through one eye as I click to open it. The new gmail setup makes it worse, because it only says I have a new email if it’s a *real* email, not something from Facebook or one of my millions of promotional emails (who signed me up for all that crap, seriously?).

I do my best to maintain a positive attitude. I remember Sylvia Plath’s words, “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” Sometimes it takes a lot of reminders from my support system. Reminders that rejection is part of it, that I have an amazing book to sell, and that it will happen for me someday. I like reading about authors who were rejected many times before finding the right agent/publisher for their work, and I remind myself of that a lot.

Sometimes I have to chant to myself, “JK Rowling was rejected 12 times…JK Rowling was rejected 12 times…”

Perhaps I just need to make the rejections more fun. I considered printing them out and rolling around on them, but, you know, paper cuts. So instead I found this little gem:

If only getting “BINGO” meant a publishing deal.

Hang in there with me, friends. It’s all a part of the process, right? Now please excuse me while I go buy some more chocolate…