Carrie Callahan

Rejection sucks, but you know what sucks more? Letting yourself disappear. I heard back from Clarion West today. It's the second time I've applied to the workshop, and the second time I've been rejected. On the plus side, I got the "good" rejection you may have seen floating about, so that's something--and that something is everything. Not every publication is gonna like your stories, not every workshop will think you're the best fit for their class, and not every agent is for you. Still, rejection can feel like failure. But there is failing, and then there is failing up . Failing up means recognizing when a rejection doesn't mean "never," just "not right now." When that dreaded e-mail comes, sometimes it's not saying "you suck," but "you're getting better!" or "you're so close. " This is the carrot in the stick-preferring world of writing that can get you through to the next su...

A big fat failing 'F'. And it's OK. I've learned a lot through my little experiment, but the most important thing was to keep my goals simple. Which I didn't. After Thanksgiving break, and my mid-term grade, things at the Self School crumbled a bit, then crumbled a bit more. I took out certain "classes," and tried to add others. I restructured the writing to try to accommodate short stories and novel writing, but that didn't work out. It was all too complicated to develop good writing habits. For me, life can't be a diet. What I mean by that is diets are temporary. My syllabus was temporary. There was a limit, a deadline, an end. Because of that, it was easy to tell myself, "Ohp! You screwed it up and now you'll never finish. Might as well eat a box of twinkies!"* *metaphorically speaking Instead, I realized I should have been looking at writing less as an assignment and more like a lifestyle. Not something to only do on s...