Rejection, it can either encourage you, ruin you, make you calloused, make you enraged, turn you off writing forever, or make you want to show that your piece is better than the last reviewer ever thought possible.
In my writing career, I had not one success until I listened to my long suffering wife’s advice. When Genmos finally succeeded I discovered a niche for my writing, but even in the furry market I’ve still had half of my submissions rejected.
That being said, there’s always been a polite reason for the refusal, and it’s normally because I submit two works per contest, but it’s also because I find it hard to fit, or figure out, exactly what the editors desire for their collections.
My most favorite rejections are ones that read something like:
We loved the work, but this was missing, here’s an upcoming anthology of a similar vein, good luck.
Those are few and far between, but they feel almost as good as an acceptance letter because the editor just admitted to liking your work AND offered constructive criticism.
The worst rejection letters are the ones that never come, and they not only leave you in suspense, but make you wonder if they ever received your story, or disliked it so much they don’t say anything to you at all so they won’t lambast you.
How do I handle rejection letters? That depends upon how it’s written, but at the end of the year, I raise a glass in salute to them and tell myself:
These are important. They tell you that you’re not perfect. Clean them up. Learn. Read successful stories and adapt, and only then will you grow. A rejection is a tool to improvement.
Then I smile and begin again.