Maybe rejections will always suck.
Maybe some days they’ll suck more than others.
Maybe some days the rejections will make you cry.
Maybe some days the rejections will make you say “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck” at your computer screen. Very loudly.
Maybe some days the rejections will make you turn around and go back to bed.
Maybe “building resilience” is a bullshit concept that isn’t particularly helpful for a lot of people.
Maybe setting a goal of 100 rejections to help stop feeling the hurt of each rejection will help.
Maybe it won’t.
Maybe the rejections will still suck when you’ve passed that 100 rejections goal and are at 207 rejections and then 342 and then 471 and then 596 rejections for the year.
Maybe the more rejections you get doesn’t mean any of them ever actually get easier.
Maybe each rejection doesn’t make your skin thicker, and that’s actually not a personal flaw.
Maybe the idea of letting rejections slide off you like water overlooks all the jagged bits you’ve got where the rejections can get caught.
Maybe some days the rejections won’t suck as much. What a concept!
Maybe you’ll have a period of time when the rejections do slip by a bit more easily.
Maybe one day that one rejection too many will arrive and the rejections will all start to suck again.
Maybe there’ll be days when you get 8 rejections in a day and each one will be a stab.
Maybe there’ll be days when you think “I should just stop sending my work out” but you’ll keep sending it out and dreading it and wondering why you’re doing this to yourself.
Maybe people should stop saying that every rejection gets you a step closer to publication, because dude, that is not how the world or logic works at all.
Maybe – this is wild – you have some mental health issues which can amplify the suck of the rejections, but that’s crazy talk because no writer ever has had mental health issues. Nope.
Maybe we are human and so the concept of rationally desensitising ourselves to rejection is overly simplistic and overlooks that we can have messy shit in our heads.
Maybe we need to hear more often that rejections suck and that feeling the suck doesn't make you a bad person.
Maybe we know that the rejections aren’t (usually) personal, but the rejections still suck.
Maybe I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and so some rejections – with no particular rational reasoning as to why some and not others – are devastating.
Maybe you have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria too. Maybe the writer you just sent a rejection to has Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and so they’ll logically know that it’s not personal but it’ll still suck massively.
Rejections will always suck.