Thursday, November 17, 2011

Nano Day 16

Daily: 1,976
Total: 33,912

Man. At 11:59 I checked my total so I could type it into the nano website where it keeps my stats. I was 88 words short of 34k and I had one minute.

Problem: At my very best, I've only ever managed about 7o wpm. And that's when I knew what to type.

So 88 words in one minute was not going to happen. But I got enough to pass the daily goal today, which is good. I've been doing quite well with that, actually. I've only had two days where I didn't make the daily goal, but one of them was just barely barely short, and both of them were still over 1,000 words.

I'd say that's pretty spectacular. Over a thousand words every single day for 2 weeks straight.

Anyway, today's nano post has to do with something I realized while contemplating my intense contempt for Christopher Paolini.

(Why so much contempt? See this post on my other blog:http://supremechancellorsra.blogspot.com/2011/11/non-spoiler-inheritance-review.html )

Huh, I guess if you count all these blog posts, my word count is even higher.

Anyway, it was about rejections. As in career oriented rejections, not getting dumped or bullied, or whatever. Rejections, in this case, specifically for writing.

Getting rejected hurts. (I would know.) No one likes to realize that they aren't as good at something as they used to think they were. It's painful soul-deep, especially when it comes to your life dream. But it happens because it has to.

Rejections weed out those who aren't into it with their whole being.

Rejections make you evaluate yourself. They force you to make yourself better.

Rejections make you work harder.

Rejections make you learn more about your field.

Take American Idol, for example. Or any other of those reality tv shows. Notice how many people go on these shows and then refuse to learn. They refuse to take any sort of criticism.

They call it "being true to myself" and "not letting morons discourage me." Those are just euphemistic ways to say "I know better than anyone else." (Obviously not always, but in these cases, it definitely is.) The people who go on to win are always the ones who accepted rejections and used them to improve.

Without rejection letters, the book market would be even more of a slovenly mess than it is. There would be oodles of trash, and barely anything good to read. The truly quality works would be lost amidst the rubbish.

Sad, but true.

Rejections, more than anything else, are what will make us reach our potential. Do you have the gumption to walk through that fire?





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