Received my four hundredth rejection a few days ago, from Analog. I think I announced my 300th around this time last year, though I'm too lazy to go back and check. But, ummm, yeah, that's alot. And there have been two three-month periods this year where I wasn't really submitting anything as the rejections came in.
It's kind of impossible to be actively angry / resentful / sad after 400 rejections (which, by the way, is not even a particularly high number by apprentice writer standards). Mostly, they don't even register at all. Though if it's a relatively recent story being rejected I do still sometimes feel a slight sense of pique at my genius going unrecognized. But I think that's neither unusual nor particularly destructive, if a sense of proportion is maintained.
Don’t give up!
Take it as a challenge you have to win!
Good luck…or should I say break a leg?
http://xxhawkeyexx.wordpress.com/
While I thank you for the sentiment, I’m distrustful of the notion that the thing we should take out of failure is to never give up. Sometimes the lesson failure teaches us is that there a whole lot of better things we could be doing with our times. While I’m fairly committed to “making it” as a writer, if I’m posting here in four years about my 800th rejection, I think I’d have to seriously reconsider what I was doing.
Hey, do you like “The Prisoner”? I feel like you would, and I want to hear your thoughts.