God how I hate to open the mailbox and see a SASE staring me in the face. Seeing in the pitiful pen work from my own hand as sender and addressee fills me with instant gloom. It’s like my parade was rained upon by a torrent of nuts and bolts, provided that I even had a parade to begin with.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, SASE stands for Self Addressed Stamped Envelope. It is what those publications which are still in the dark ages and want queries and submissions by snail mail require, so that two or three months later they can return the SASE and make some writer’s day a crap deluxe.
I will be honest here. I don’t like cold rejection. I hate it. I will walk through fire in a gasoline-soaked tuxedo to avoid rejection. And I’m not just talking about getting turned down by some publication.
What I have squandered in my life due to a fear of rejection I will never know. I have likely frittered away what may have been significant chunks of romance due to cold-shoulder-o-phobia. Chunks of romance, hmmm, I rather like that phrase!
So what the hell I am I doing trying to kick-start a freelance writing career if I have this unsettling fear of rejection? Well, it is something I’ve wanted to do for a very, very long time. It is a dream, just as I have had other dreams, some of which didn’t come true because I was afraid of being stuck in the reject pile like a fly in amber. Thus, I will just have to overcome my fear of rejection, at least insofar as publications are concerned.
I am taking a long weekend beginning today in order to recharge my batteries. Monday I will come back to the computer ready to go to work with new ideas and a determination to stick with the plan of some day making a living, however modest, at freelancing.
If I get past those fears of publications rejecting me then who knows? Perhaps I will get past my dread of rejection in other facets of my life. For now, I will just keep it simple.