I've been rejected - and I'm so happy!

Yesterday I received an email from a publication I'd sent a short story to way back in May. I'd forgotten all about it to be honest but that's another story. The email said thanks for sending your story in, we've read it and it's not for us but good luck submitting it somewhere else.

Now those of you with sensible heads will think that I should have been upset with the rejection, yes? But no, I was so chuffed. My son and husband can't understand it, they think I'm a mad woman. Yet I couldn't take the smile off my face all day yesterday.

Now I'm not normally a fan of rejection. Like anyone else it upsets me if folk don't like me or want me, I'm only human after all. Being rejected isn't good for my self esteem, never high at the best of times, so my reaction is surprising. And if I'm honest I'd have been even happier if they had accepted my story - that would have been another post entirely!

So why was I so happy to have been rejected? Because it made me feel like a real writer. Real writers get rejected, they get rejected a lot. JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before she found someone to take on Harry Potter; Agatha Christie took 5 years to get published. Rejection is the badge of honour for any writer. Some people have started challenging themselves to get a set number of rejections in a year! The point about rejection is that in order to get rejected you have to submit your writing to the scrutiny of others. It took me a long time to feel confident enough to submit my story. Letting someone other than my loved ones read my work seemed like a really big step. The fact that the publishers of the online magazine read my work, considered it and let me know they had done so is hugely important to me. I hope my loved ones wouldn't tell me I could write well if it wasn't true but you never know. Maybe they don't want to upset me. I know that the publishers didn't give me feedback but the fact that they bothered to respond means a lot to me. I had the courage to submit, they read it and it wasn't for them. But it was read, it was considered and that counts. In my mind that makes me a real writer.

That's not something I've felt able to say very often or very loudly. So thank you for rejecting my story, I love you for doing it. My story will be re-read, edited and submitted somewhere else soon. The real writer in me will see to that...