THE LITERARY Life

Rejection’s Gift

WE WRITERS tend not to give rejection the love or respect it deserves. We speak ill of it, as if it’s a malevolent demon, a destructive force, an uninvited guest that ruins our party. We revile it. We curse it. We reject it. Because rejection is a damnable, despicable thing that seemingly aims to only hurt and hinder. It gives us no warmth, no love, and we writers need love; in fact we don’t just need love—we need love in bounteous, fulsome heaps. We want editors to gush over our words like a teenager with a crush. We want readers to slather us with adoration.

Or that’s what we might think. Love, the purest kind of acceptance, plays a vital, necessary, and nourishing role in creation because writers, not unlike children, become more secure in the threatening terrain of the world with the more love and support they receive. That trust in the world, in oneself, can lead to creative risk-taking and bold exploration, but it can also tip into a self-satisfaction that breeds a complacent, even