It’s going to be tougher than you think.
Caro Wallis via Compfight
You will be criticised. You will be judged. You will be ridiculed. But most of all, you will be ignored.
These are the fears that lurk in the subconscious of anyone who is about to embark on a creative endeavour. That creative endeavour may be writing a novel, short story, or an article for a magazine, it may be painting a watercolour, or a huge portrait or abstract in oils, it may be composing a song, or stepping on stage as a singer in a band, or an actor in a play.
In any creative endeavour, the fear is there that the creator, the artist, will be criticised (That book was boring. Those songs are miserable. What’s he trying to say in that painting?) that she will be judged (Did she really think she could sing? Who does she think she is, writing a novel about sex?) or ridiculed (My cat could paint better than that. When he sings, he sounds like he’s having a rectal examination).
But you shouldn’t fear rejection, whatever shape it takes. It happens, and it happens to anyone brave enough to step outside of the comfort zone, (that comfort zone outlined by the soft, flickering glow from the box in the corner of your room) and create, thereby exposing their inner selves to the world.
Embrace rejection, in all its forms. Embrace failure, as failing is part of the learning curve. Without failing, how can you succeed? Don’t let the naysayers, the critics on the sidelines, tear apart what you are striving to build.
But what about being ignored?
This is your greatest challenge, to find an audience, and then to please that audience.
Being ignored will do your reputation more harm than empty criticism, judgement or ridicule.
Need any more encouragement in persistence, and the art of not giving up?
Mojo story teller Joe R Lansdale (Bubba Ho Tep, Bad Chilli) tells of his early days working in the baking hot fields of Texas by day, and pounding a typewriter at night.
“. . . because I didn’t know better I wrote a story a day . . I got, in time, about a thousand rejections.” (Emphasis mine.) ¹
Similarly, New Orleans writer James Lee Burke used to write his stories on his ten day shift on an oil rig, mail out the manuscripts on his five days at home, then back to work on the oil rig. Every time he returned home, he found a pile of rejection slips waiting for him. Even after he had published three novels, he experienced thirteen years without a paperback publication.
“My novel “The Lost Get-Back Boogie” alone received 110 rejections during nine years of submission, supposedly a record in the industry.” ²
1. http://americanfrankenstein.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/first-blood-joe-r-lansdale.html
2. http://www.jamesleeburke.com/content/4
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