Any long term reader of this blog could be forgiven for thinking I’m a bit obsessed with defending my fragile ego. This post will only confirm that.
I’ve just come across this post on Literary Hub by Kim Liao. She is now actively aiming to receive 100 rejections in one year, but has fallen short at 43. Somewhere in that, she had several acceptances and some very nice rejections.
Two particularly interesting thoughts:
“The thrill of an acceptance eventually wears off, but the quiet solidarity of an encouraging rejection lasts forever.”
She quotes David Bales and Ted Orland in Art & Fear, describing a ceramics class. Half of the students were asked to producing one high quantity of work while the other half were told their pots would be weighed. Fifty pounds of pots would automatically get an A. “Surprisingly, the works of highest quality came from the group being graded on quantity, because they had continually practiced, churned out tons of work, and learned from their mistakes. The other half of the class spent most of the semester paralyzed by theorizing about perfection, which sounded disconcertingly familiar to me—like all my cases of writer’s block.”
But I recommend the whole article.
sophie beal 