Who’s Still Afraid of Rejection? Oh Yeah, That Would Be Me

“Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will often have trouble at the start of his or her career because strong, distinctive voices sometimes make editors nervous. But in the end, only the strong survive.”

~Jayne Ann Krentz 

Yes, I said it.  As much as I try to convince others not to be afraid to go after what they want for their dreams and to not always be afraid that someone is going to say no, I have not yet been able to take my own advice.  But isn’t that how it always goes?  You tell someone to go for it, don’t be afraid, go big or go home, and all of those other motivating and encouraging things you say to your friends, that you whole heartedly mean when you’re saying them, yet somehow you still can’t apply that rule of thumb to you and your life’s dreams.  

I can’t seem to move out of my own damn way.  I keep putting it on my to do lists that I have to get these query letters to these national magazines that I’ve been dying to see my writing in, or the query letters to this list of agents that I want to possibly represent me, and yet when I go to type up the letters, or even just a simple letter of introduction, I get so caught up in trying to make them perfect.  I’ll get the letters done but then when I go over them it just doesn’t scream perfection and I get worried about a rejection that hasn’t happened, and one that can’t if I don’t ever send the damn letters anywhere.  

I can’t figure out why I always do this to myself.  I know I’m not perfect and while you hear people always talking about pitching the perfect pitch and not sending imperfect query letters out, I know that all of them couldn’t have gotten it right all the time.  Their letters couldn’t have always got them a guaranteed acceptance from the publication or agent of their choice.  So why is it that I can’t get the notion of perfection out of my head?  

It’s seriously holding me back and the truth of the matter is that the most imperfect query letter is the one that never gets seen by anyone.  Next week I am going to make it my mission to get up the courage with being okay that I’m not perfect and that my letters most likely won’t be perfect, but at least they will be sent out, and at least, if they do get rejected by everyone I send them to, they were still seen. 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

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The No Matter What of It All

“No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.”

~Madonna  

This week I have actually been really productive, or at least more productive then I’ve been in a really long time.  I am starting to feel that drive again to get what I need done no matter what.  I heard a celebrity say once that those three words were words that drove her to the level of success that she had reached.  She said that if she always told herself ‘no matter what’ the job or task had to get done then she would be driven to do it.  It may not be done perfectly or maybe not even in its entirety, but it will get done.  I’ve been thinking a lot about those three words and this week that is what I have had in my mind.  Instead of trying to make everything perfect and get every single thing done, I have just been content on getting whatever I could get done, no matter what.  

I was talking to Ms. L. last night and I told her about the submission that I finally sent off to a magazine.  It sounds like something that you would think I had been doing on a regular basis by this point but sadly it was not.  I have spent months agonizing over whether editors will like my article ideas, whether my writing was really as good as I thought it was that they would even pay attention to a query from me, but mostly I had been trying to figure out how to write the PERFECT query letter.  I have stacks and stacks of books (and internet research) on how to write a perfect (or irresistible) query but none of them seemed to help me.  I had sworn that I would not send out a query until I got the query letters just right.  The problem with that theory was that none of my query letters were coming out perfectly, so of course nothing was being sent off.  

This week I said that I was just going to start sending query letters, even if they weren’t perfect, even if they weren’t even close to being right, because if I don’t send anything out then obviously no one will see my work and I will never see my byline in any national magazine.  So I did.  I sent a submission, and it was indeed imperfect, but it also indeed felt really good.  The thing is that I can’t promise that the queries will be perfect, but I imagine that with more practice in sending them out on a more consistent basis, they will get better.  

I also told Ms. L. that I was going to work on my latest novel that I have yet to finish because I honestly haven’t touched it since the end of National Novel Writing Month (I’m not sure why I haven’t).  I said that even if I didn’t write much on it that I would at least work on it for half an hour, no matter what.  I in fact did work on my novel, and though I did not write much on it, I did write for a half an hour.  I plan on working on it tonight as well.  

I am finding that this week is turning out to do for me exactly what I wanted it to do for me (at least on the writing level) which is re-light that fire under me to get moving and put all my plans in motion.  I think now that I have really started to visualize my dreams I can begin to see them as my reality.  It’s helping me put some action into all of the planning that I have been doing.  It feels really good to feel that fire starting to burn again.  I just hope it doesn’t go out again anytime soon.  I’ve got too much lost time to make up for.  But I will get the job done, No Matter What!     

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress