Author L.A. Goodman

“Do what you love. Don’t let anyone steal your happiness.”

I saw this quote on an inspirational group I follow. It’s solid advice, following in the footsteps of those ‘life is short’ quotes about eating the cheesecake and buying the shoes. Most of these platonic advisement’s, while innocent on the surface, leave out all the fine print of actually executing said endeavors. Life is short, yes, but it’s also complicated.

Should you really eat that cheesecake?

Do you have the extra funds for those shoes?

Are you in a place to do what you love?

What if what you love is currently somewhat of a masochistic exercise rather than one of pure happiness?

The latter is what I find myself thinking about. I’m a writer. I’m an unpublished writer. I truly enjoy writing and am in the process of trying to get published.

Masochism.

I thought I was prepared for all the rejection letters. I wasn’t. Rejection is hard. Each shut door is like a gut punch. It shouldn’t be personal, and it isn’t from the literary agent’s point of view. From the writer’s point of view it can’t help but be personal in some ways. Rejection is hard. Especially when you’re so in love with what you’ve created. Especially when you’re so in love with what you get to do in the day to day.

How lucky I am to get to put fantasy onto paper and create… just to create. I get to do this.

Lately, however, I’ve let the numerous rejections steal my happiness. I’ve allowed that to happen. It’s personal to me, more so than it should be. Months ago, when I had completed my first novel, I forged ahead with my sword drawn to conquer the literary world. Now I’ve slipped back into my tortoise shell and hunkered down, clutching my creation like Gollum does the One Ring. My precious…

Rejection. Masochism.

Don’t let anyone steal your happiness.

Alright, so what do I need to do? Get out of the shell again, dust myself off, edit, edit, edit, write, write, write, edit some more, start sending out queries again. Query, query, query. Edit some more.

Write. Do what you love. Don’t let anyone steal your happiness.

Expect rejection. Again.

And again.

It’s okay. Not everyone is going to like this thing I’ve created.

Until hopefully, someday, someone believes in my little creation as much as I do. There’s also that quote about falling seven times and standing up eight, after all.