The tree picture will become relevant in a little bit, I promise.
The thing about sending query letters is that everyone tells you to not lose motivation and to see a rejection as redirection. I am, however, a human being, and as such when I spend several hours a week sending out query letters to literary agents for a book I spent eight years writing and get an automated "yeah, no" in response, if I get a response at all... I fear spirits take a nose dive rather quickly.
Because of this, I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about rejection letters, as well as the rejections and critiques from other people for my writing, and yours by extension. I can vividly recall a college professor with a genuine nature but an unintentional and unfortunate tone of passive aggressiveness to his speech telling me that my short story was an "adventurous attempt". It still haunts me. I got a 98 in the class but that comment sticks with me like old cheese sticks to a car window. How do you combat harsh critiques and rejections? How do you keep the thirst for writing alive?
Well, you start by ignoring it.
Nobody knows your story as well as you do. When you're first writing and a story is taking it's first steps, pen to paper is all you should strive for. Even during the first few drafts, don't listen to what other people say unless you're directly asking for assistance. Do what you feel is right for the story and the characters. This is specifically good advice for professors and the like who, as I've heard of in horror stories, will try to discourage you from creating at all and make some baseless claim that you shouldn't be a writer or you should try something else.
I don't think everyone should be a writer, but that's because I think some would-be authors suck as people and the things they want to endorse should never see the light of day. I will never discourage someone from writing because they're "bad", ESPECIALLY not now as AI writing becomes more common, and anyone who does is probably butthurt about something. I wouldn't let it get to me.
Remember, this is your story; you're motivation, your dreams, your love. That is what matters. That is what you should fight to protect. Once you lose your love for the topic, you've lost everything. Hold it close, hold it safe, chase after it if it starts to slip away. If it is important to you, lean in closer so you can hear me better, it is important. Write it.
I'm not saying you shouldn't take critiques at all - in fact, I think most of the time you should! Though it can be framed harshly and it might drastically change the story, a lot of people, especially editors, have your best interest at heart when they recommend you change things! Take them seriously!
Is that going to hurt? Abso-fucking-lutely it's going to hurt. I have agonized over even the most well-meant critiques many a time because my book is my baby, and how dare you say my baby isn't perfect! What do you know? I know my baby and I know that she's perfect just the way she is, thank you very much!
Now let's look at it in a different way; instead of your critic being a bully trying to insult your child, your critic is a school counselor (who actually does their job, if you can possibly imagine such a fantastical scenario), and they're telling you that your child is struggling and needs extra help. You say "no, they can handle it on their own, you don't know what you're talking about".
I beg of you, don't be that parent. Don't be the parent that refuses to acknowledge when their child is limping along because they take it as an insult to their parenting. I promise it's not. I used the term "flesh-full" once in a WIP, to which my sister firmly told me I could not, under any circumstances, use again. This does not mean I am a bad writer, it only means "flesh-full" is a stupid phrase. That's all.
When it comes to rejection and harsh critiques, I like to think of the words of Hozier in a song I probably shouldn't romanticize the meaning of but am going to anyway; "a tree denies itself nothing that makes it grow // no rainfall, no sunshine // no blood upon the snow". (In all seriousness this song is a banger about the harshness of nature, survival, and sacrifice, and is one of my favorite songs ever so I highly recommend giving it a listen if you haven't.)
Sadly, I am not a tree. If I was, I'd like to think I would be a yew tree such as the one posted above - I told you it would become relevant - but that's a different conversation. The bottom line is that no matter how grisly or morose it's beginnings, I am going to use every scrap I can get if it may help me grow larger and wilder. Rejection is redirection. To add to the tree analogy; why insist on building roots through the cement sidewalk on my left when there is a beautifully open field on my right? Why beat a dead horse when there is a perfectly alive one over there? A Friesian, or a Palomino. Maybe a Vanner. Maybe all three, because who am I to limit myself?
In conclusion; yew do yew, and leave the rest to fall as it will.
That was three tree puns in one go. Imagine if I allowed someone to discourage me from writing all those years ago, you would've never gotten the chance to read that angel of sentence. Lucky you.
Happy writing!
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