The road to getting published is a long one, fraught with a great deal of stress and rejection. My writing partner and I have a system for tackling that pain, focusing on celebrating each new rejection as one more cog in the process to eventual publication. We share a large jar in which every rejection is symbolized by a button of proportionate size and style to how much it stung to receive. We make it a habit to “throw spaghetti” and focus on not putting much emphasis on any individual query, instead burying them under the pile so that if we get rejected, hopefully, we don’t even really much remember sending it out to begin with.
That said, being able to see the fruits of that labor in print is validating, the joy of which I don’t want to overlook. I’m honored that recently I’ve had a number of items be accepted for publication and they are out and available to be shared.
