Why Write
Writing in the Face of Discouragement
I have a confession: Even when the universe and common sense seem to be telling me that writing is a waste of my time, I feel better after I’ve written.
Rejections hit most writers very hard. Whether it’s an essay I’ve submitted to a literary magazine or an editor who has decided my book just isn’t for her, each time I read a rejection letter, I feel as if somebody has punched me, not once, not twice, but repeatedly, in the solar plexus. And that’s just the physical response. What happens in my head best remain there. Letting it out to breathe air and see the light of day would create a public danger!
Usually the thick, mania envelope bearing my spidery scrawl announces the outcome of the submission before I have to face the actual words of the rejection: sorry this isn’t for us; we receive so many submissions and can only publish a very small number of them; this doesn’t fit our needs at the moment, etc. Any writer who has ever dared to risk rejection knows the variations all too well.
Yesterday, however, the shock was more intense, much more intense, than ever before. The SASE I discovered in my mailbox was exquisitely thin. Oh my goodness, I thought. They’ve accepted my article. And without my usual restraint, I ripped the contents out of the envelope, delirious with joy.
“Unfortunately. . . .” was the first word I read.
The rest of the day was awful. Doubly awful. Not only had the journal rejected my piece, I had been duped by the envelope the rejection arrived in. How could I have been so _____, _____, _______. You can fill in the blanks.
Yet today, by 9:00, here I was at my desk, my fingers tapping on the keys, lulled by the familiar clickety clack of my keyboard. In the past, before I established by writing practice, days would have passed before I could even consider writing again. Days spent insulting myself, convincing everyone who would listen, that I was a lousy writer, a failure, that I had been wasting my time, that I should give up writing.
Not now. I have learned to ride the tsunamis of rejection. Not that I don’t feel devastated. I do. But some time ago, I realized that, while publishing is certainly something I hope for, it is by no means the reason I write. I write because when I’m not writing, I feel unmoored. I write because hardly a day passes that I don’t think about writing, don’t feel the itch to sit down and watch the words tripping across my monitor screen. I write because writing is what makes me feel full and rich. Because writing is how I recognize myself. Because, each day of writing is a new beginning, a chance to invent a story, communicate an idea, narrate an experience anew.
I am because I write and I write because I am.