How to Face an Inbox of Rejection

By Kathleen Siddell

Kathleen Siddell

Start writing again. Type and type and type. Delete and re-type. Is this any good? Submit. Hope. Lose hope. Check email.

An inbox full of rejection.

Read: articles, stories, books, the back of cereal boxes. So good! Jealousy. Wine. Crocodile tears. How to say what’s already been said? Coffee. Think and think and think. See,

an inbox full of rejection.

Try humor! This is funny! Peck the keys and chuckle. Peck and chuckle. Peck and chuckle. Submit. Not funny:

An inbox full of rejection.

Great job! But not a great fit for our prestigious site. It’s not you, it’s us. Cliches. You’re writing is filled with them. And obscure metaphors. Stop writing and we wouldn’t have to contribute to your,

inbox of rejection.

Delete all email. Game over. But. But. But. There’s a lot of fish in the sea. (Cliche! Delete.) There is a sea of inter-nets. It feels almost as vast as the,

inbox of rejection.

Look for a “real job.” Think about writing a piece about looking for a real job. Wish that deleting a draft was as satisfying as pulling paper out of a typewriter and crinkling into a ball. Wish you had a typewriter so that you wouldn’t be tempted to incessantly check your

inbox of rejection.

Check Facebook. Wonder why you ever started following so many up-and-coming writers. Writing. Publishing. Book deals. Getting paid. Getting paid? Certainly not wading through

an inbox of rejection.

Check the astrological forecast. The cosmos isn’t really against you. It’s just the new moon aligning with the Aries sun messing with the internets and rendering your email

an inbox of rejection.

Stop writing. Stop reading. Get lost in Netflix. For days. Or has it been weeks? Take a shower. Turn on your computer. Are you ready to face

an inbox of rejection?

A special kind of torture. Subjecting yourself to this madness must be some kind of disease. Google “the torture of writing.” Feel slightly justified by the results (over 2 million!). Surely you’re not the only one with

an inbox of rejection.

Write ironic piece about all the rejections. Stand by your work. Realize you still can’t really explain irony correctly. Dummy. No wonder you have,

an inbox full of rejection.

No thanks. Nope. Rejected. You wish! Please stop writing. Start a blog.

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Kathleen Siddell is a freelance writer living in Singapore with her husband and two kids. Her essays have appeared on The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Mamalode among other sites. She’s working hard to add and expand this list. You can find more of her writing at her ever-transitioning blog/website or find her drowning in the Twitterverse @kathleensiddell.