I got my first rejection letter last week. I purposely submitted an essay for a literary journal contest, knowing that I really didn’t have a chance of winning. I figured if I got my first rejection out of the way before I finished a the novel I was working on, I would feel safer letting someone read the novel. I didn’t know that I would be right in the middle of sharing my novel with others when I heard the results of the literary contest. Even though I thought I didn’t care, I did. The rejection stung. My confidence in my writing abilities tanked. That was not what I needed going into the time when I had planned to share my novel with others. So, I have been questioning my writing abilities and the very basic reason of why I choose to write.
I have been writing since I was young. I got A’s in every English class I took in high school and college except one: Advanced writing my senior year. I believe I got a B the first quarter and then an A the second. I have written for my family’s business newsletter for 35 years. I have blogged for the business once the printed newsletter was outdated. About 10 years ago, I felt unfulfilled and started to explore what I was passionate about. I remembered writing as something I was good at. In fact, I never thought about a career in journalism. Writing was something that was easy for me and therefore not worthy of a career. But doing that passion search caused me to realize that perhaps writing was something I was meant to do. It started out as a specific but small goal: I will be a published writer. It happened. I submitted something about a book I read that influenced me and it was published in the paper. Yeah, goal achieved. Then I had an opportunity. I was in charge of advertising at my business and a magazine we decided to advertise in wanted an article to go along with it. Even thought I was dissuaded by my sister, I knew this was an opportunity I wanted to take, so I did. I have been writing for that magazine for 3 years or more now. Many people have come up to me to say that they enjoy reading my article.
I have written in the magazine that my business publishes once a year.
What would Jane Austen Grow? 