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Written by Ali Ashhar
(Twitter: @AliAshhar11)
"You have to learn to take rejection not as an indication of personal failing but as a wrong address."
My Submittable reminds me of the famous quote by Thomas Alva Edison, "I have not failed." "I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work." It hits all different when your essay on being rejected gets rejected, but somewhere deep inside you are unleashing the warrior within yourself. The lighter the rejection gets, the stronger the soul fortifies. The theoretical practise of handling rejections often leads me to handle hardships practically in life.
Like rejections, life too is laden with unexpected and random situations like never before. Being a writer is a comprehensive process. You need to have intense focus, serene solitude, clarity of thought and the art of knowing to put right emotions in an eloquent way altogether. However, the struggle doesn’t end here. What’s more complicated than finding inspiration for writing is finding a right place for your piece at the right time. The struggle intensifies even further, when you come from a non-native English speaking country. The challenge to get published among native speakers is humongous, but it’s even worse for non-native speakers.
You never know how strong a person gets who wakes up to 6 rejections and 1 acceptance in 7 days. His soul opens to the realities of life: struggle is the synonym of life, and you will make peace as soon as you accept the fact.
At one point, you may rant or yell about rejections, but some point later in life, I realised I had to face it with a smile, and it taught me to embrace the hardships of life with a smile too. Drop by drop, you get an ocean; how about getting an ocean of strength by collecting every drop of emotion that you strive to tackle, that didn’t let your smile fade at the end of the day? At one stage, rejections from big or small publications cease impacting you—the universe has its own way to cherish your greatness once you master this art.
Even publications use the word "accept" and not "approve" because art is about embracing the realities and not about flattering with random whims and desires.
You know you have matured as a writer when you know that getting published is more about attitude than aptitude. Awards, trophies, and achievements are temporary, but the personality you carve out of those rejections is permanent. The warrior within the writer knows getting published in 10 places is not a big deal; getting there after 100 rejections is. When the rejection note reads that this isn’t a reflection on your work, the failure in life syncs that same line in my mind that this isn’t a reflection on your personality.
A failed job interview disappoints you less when you know that you have handled the same feeling over the years: many excellent pieces yet limited space compared to someone who is totally new to that feeling. Now, I am not glorifying failure, but the way to embrace and overcome the random melodies that life keeps humming and that go over our heads if we don’t have the idea to deal with them.
About the Author:
Ali Ashhar is a poet, short story writer and columnist from Jaunpur, India. He is the author of poetry collection, Mirror of Emotions. Following the release of his book, he was chosen as the Best Debut Author for the year 2021 by The Indian Awaz and was the recipient of India Prime 100 Authors Award. His works appear in Indian Review, The Raven Review, Bosphorus Review of Books, among others.
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