Rejection

picture by nathangibbs

So, I'm sorry if I've talked about this before, but it's weighing on my mind. I thought about coming up with a clever title for this, but there's not clever about rejection is there? It's just... well, rejection. No clever titles. No glitter to mask it. Just rejection.

It sucks. Let's get that out of the way right away. There's no happy party "Yay I got a rejection!" You do that when you get a yes.

And probably a whole lot of this.

But they're not the end of the world. They really aren't. I've had enough of them to know that they won't brutally murder you like you think. They won't make you go into a deep depression and cry until your eyes fall out. Yes, you'll be sad. You might even get angry and want to tell of the people that rejected you (BAD ADVICE! This will completely cut you off from future submissions to that source).

I got some great advice from a teacher once. She is the head of the MFA program at Southern Illinois  University, Allison Joseph. I took her intro to poetry class as an Undergrad (which I still am) and she really is a great woman. She's a genius and knows what she's talking about. One day we talked about rejections. She told us that when she first got rejections, she gave herself to be sad/angry/whatever else she wanted to feel. As time progressed and she got more rejections, she told us that she gave herself a week, then a day, and then an hour.

The idea here, if you didn't pick up, is that you don't dwell on them. You give yourself a little bit of time to be sad/angry/whatever then you move on. Just because one magazine didn't like your poem/short story/etc doesn't mean a different magazine won't. It doesn't mean it's bad, or that you should scrap it. It means you write. You continue to try new magazines, new poems, new short stories, and you move on. Don't let anyone stop you from writing. You write no matter what others say because in the long run, you aren't writing for others; you're writing for you. You're writing because you love it.

Genre Writing

If you can't tell, I like GIFS... and Spongebob.

I've been thinking a lot about what I write lately. A couple of different things have popped up that have really got me thinking about the fact that I write Young Adult. First was over Winter Break when I started looking up MFA programs that I wanted to apply to. I knew most of the programs wouldn't have any kind of YA type things but I wasn't prepared for the fact that almost all reputable programs say specifically no genre writing. This really got me down. But I've talked to my sister, who is getting her PhD at University California Riverside and my personal mentor, and she helped me realized something. Just because I don't get into my program off my YA writing does not mean I can't still write YA.

Another thing that happened was I recently applied for a position at the schools undergraduate literary magazine Grassroots. For my interview I had to bring them a writing sample. I know most people look down on YA writing as not real writing, so I decided to bring in one of my non-YA works. This also made me realize, and I will restate, most people look down on YA writing. For all you YA writers out there, you know this stinks and is a common thing. It really is a bummer that most people see YA writing as not real or not good.

The third thing that happened that made me think about it was an article I read on YA Highway's blog. It asked the question, do you read outside your genre. My answer is yes. I have to. Because of my school classes I am required to read almost exclusively things that are out of the genre that I write. I think this is good for me though. It really helps me improve my writing. However, it makes me realize how little YA is read in college and the fact that it really isn't credited well.

I know I have led you down a long and depressing road of what seems like anti-YA but I have a point. The thing is, if you're out there and are like me, feeling like YA isn't looked upon well, then what I have to say is, forget them. Really all that matters is you're writing, right? You're doing what you love, no matter what genre. While I think it is a good idea, and very important, to read other genres, just remember to stay faithful to what you love. Don't let someone else persuade you that your writing will never be good enough because the characters aren't the right age, or the fact that your setting may be a little fantasy. Do what you love, and forget the rest.