What would Jane Austen Grow?

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  I have blogged for the  business once the printed newsletter was outdated.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.