What it takes to be a REAL writer

The wonderful and terrible part of querying is, of course, the rejections. Last week I got three. All personal, all extremely encouraging and positive... though during the moment itself, that doesn't seem to help.
It feels something like this:

Girl: Ok...I know I'm really throwing myself out there, but I think we'd be great together.
Boy: Um...yeah. You know, you're really nice and gorgeous and everything, but I really only like redheads so I'm going to say no. But don't worry, I'm sure the right guy for you will come along soon.

As soon as you can remove yourself from the emotional upheaval of the moment, you notice the good bits like "nice" and "gorgeous". But until you have consumed enough chocolate, all you hear is one big, fat "NO!"

So last week with no chocolate in my system and three "NO!"s reverberating between my ears, I headed over to the library. Books are almost as good as chocolate--even better, but they just take a little longer to produce the desired panacea. So I headed up to the desk with an armload. While one librarian checked them out for me, another gave me funny looks from behind the other computer.

I started to squirm. Gosh, I must even LOOK rejected. Finally she said, "Excuse me...you're a writer, arent' you?"

I nodded, even though I wasn't feeling very writerly at the moment. "I thought so!" she said. "I remembered your name from the Tassy Walden Awards!* I was wondering...we have a creative writing group for teens here at the library--would you ever be interested in coming to talk to them, about being a writer, and maybe answer any questions they might have?"

I blinked a few times before saying, "Yeah--I'd love to...but I'm not published yet."

For some amazing reason, her face lit up. "That's great! I think it would be wonderful for them to see how much time and perseverance it takes to succeed!"

I blinked again, this time because all the frustration of the day's rejections seemed to be welling up behind my eyelids. "You don't know how good it is for me to hear that right now," I said. "I, um, actually came here right after getting a rejection, and the whole way over kept feeling, I'm never going to make it...I'm not a real writer."

Impossibly, her face grew brighter. "Oh--you could tell them about that!" she said. "It would be so great for them to learn about submissions and rejections and dedication..." She told me she'd send me an email later in the month as they wouldn't be meeting until after the new year. I thanked her, and just as the first librarian placed the last book on my mountain of a pile, she leaned toward me and said, "You know...you're not a real writer until you've been rejected."

So, thank you, wonderful librarians. You saved the rest of my week from being a complete wallowing waste.
And, while I'm at it: thank you, wonderful agents, for taking the time to be nice to me even though I'm not a redhead...I mean, even though my book's not right for you. Really, you have no idea how much that helps an hour later.


*See my "Awards" tab above for more about the Tassy Walden Awards. If you live in Connecticut, it's a competition you absolutely must enter.