*Photo taken from Unsplash.com free images Hi, friends! I have a fun challenge this lovely Friday! Based on the image above, let's create a story together. Here's how this is going to work: The first person to comment starts the story. The next person to comment continues the story off of what the first person wrote, and so on. Some notes to keep things interesting: You are not allowed to use the words cold, friends, or dark. (You may imply them but not use those specific words. Be creative.) Please, keep your part of the story to no more than 10 sentences each. Rules: Please respect each other and my blog. This is a Christian blog focused towards Christian teenagers. Please, do not use language that would harm our witness, please keep the actions of your characters pure and not violent. I reserve the right to remove any comments that I do not approve of or that violate these rules. Have fun, y'all. ;) Tell me a story! When I first started submitting guest posts online, I received rejections. Lots of them. In fact, it took months before I actually received my first acceptance email for an article that I had submitted online. After my initial wallowing in self-pity (not something I recommend), I began to ask myself, "What am I doing wrong? What could I change?" It was at this point that God brought the blessing of the Young Writer's Workshop into my life and I saw a complete change in my writing. (For more details about YWW, click here.) Although I still receive rejections, I receive more acceptance emails than I ever thought possible. But I also learned along the way that rejection is not a bad thing. And here's why: Rejection taught me humility. The truth is that accepting constructive criticism takes a lot of humility. It's not always fun to have an editor or a friend or another writer critique your words and offer ways to make it better. After all, sometimes I can tend to think that my writing is perfect the first time and doesn't need any changes (Is this just me? Okay then...). For a long time it was hard for me to accept constructive criticism. I did not like editors. Rejection taught me that I needed to develop a more humble spirit with my writing and cultivate an open mind. I needed to be more open-minded to change and how I could make my writing better. Writers are always growing. Rejection taught me perseverance. Nothing can sting quite like being told "no" when you worked really hard on something and for something. After about my first five writing rejections, I was ready to give up. "Another rejection?" I would ask myself in defeat. "I'm never going to be published online." Here's the thing: Writing is tough. Rejection is even tougher. But rejection is a part of writing. Every writer has faced rejection at some point. The best writers we know faced multiple rejections. What separated them from the rest was that they never gave up. When you face rejection it will hurt and it will be so hard to keep getting back up, brushing yourself off, and getting back to your goal. But you must persevere. Never give up. Rejection taught me to re-evaluate my focus. Sometimes we lose focus. It's easy for us to lose focus in just about every area of life, but for me, writing is an area that is especially hard for me. I've always been a super driven person and writing professionally is my goal and dream. So sometimes in my efforts to grow my platform and expand my writing influence, I had the tendency to shift my focus off Christ and onto just getting published. Receiving rejection after rejection taught me that perhaps my focus was in the wrong place. Perhaps I was wanting to get published more than I was wanting to glorify Christ. And admitting that stung worse than the rejection. If your focus has shifted off of glorifying Christ, please re-evaluate your heart. Why are you writing? Why are you trying to get published? Keep your focus where it should be. Rejection taught me that I love writing. You may be slightly confused. Haven't I always loved writing? Of course. I grew up loving the art of writing. But when I became serious about writing, I started writing more because I had to instead of because I wanted to. I now had readers counting on me, I had a blog schedule to keep up with, I had a platform to grow and readers to reach. After being rejected several times, I asked myself, "If you never receive anything but rejection in writing, will you keep writing?" The answer was always yes. Because I love what I do. I love being a writer. Rejection reminded me that I loved writing and I would write whether I someday got published or not. Always remember why you started writing. Are you writing because you love it? Then keep doing it, no matter what. Rejection wasn't easy for me and I don't think it's easy for anyone. But I wouldn't trade my rejections. Rejection was a blessing in disguise for me and taught me more about writing than anything else. Don't be afraid of rejection. Embrace the lessons. And don't give up. |
About this page:
This page of my blog is dedicated specifically to writers. I've been writing for over half of my life. I live and breathe writing. Because of that, I'm passionate about helping other writers grow, develop, and succeed. This section of my blog will include blog posts dedicated to writing, encouragement, and resources. Feel free to read through some posts and my contact form is always open if you ever have any questions or need encouragement! ♥ Archives
April 2018
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