A literary writer on this same message board has published several short stories. Some on the web and the rest in print magazines. From reading her work I can see she is well on the road to success. But she is frustrated. When a story of hers appears in print she's as high as a kite. But the feeling only lasts a short time and soon she's back to griping. She too has written a novel, and like the previous writer, she has been pursuing publication. So far, every publisher has passed on her novel.
These tales of woe are the staple of a writer's existence. To top things off, the only support we really get is from each other. There is an unspoken belief among non-writers (and these may include your spouse, your parents, your best friends), that writing is easy. After all why do you go to all the trouble if you find it hard? So the belief persists that if you get any kind of rejection at all, you must be no good at it.
On the contrary, bestselling author, the late Marion Zimmer Bradley insisted that editors did not publish what was good. Editors publish what they think their audience wants. Because you are not yet published does not necessarily mean you're a bad writer.
Rejection is part of the process. Even Stephen King has experienced rejection. In his book "On Writing," he says that he used to nail the rejection slips on the wall until they got too thick and he had to put a spike through them. British author Catherine Cookson, whose stories were adapted into movies, had her first novel rejected, thrown into the trash, in fact, by a disdainful editor. Only by chance was it retrieved by an assistant who took it home and read it, and insisted it get a second reading. Romance novelist Nora Roberts had her first two novels rejected before she got published. Suspense queen, Mary Higgins Clark, had to suffer 6 rewrites and 40 rejection slips before her first short story was published.
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