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| On a Wednesday afternoon, in my outdoor writing haven. |
As the other students and I rummaged through the letters, I felt this surge of excited anticipation I had been missing for a long while. The excited anticipation was, however, for something you probably wouldn't expect. Because it involved the one thing that is universally disliked, if not feared: rejection. But, as my fingers touched those letters sent to my instructor, who by far, is the best writing instructor I've ever had, this feeling came over me - I can't wait for my first rejection letter. Sound a little crazy? Yes, I know. But, you see, that rejection letter means something. Would mean something. Would mean I actually finished a written work - a short story, an essay, a novel - something. A finished product. And at this point, I just want a finished product.
Because at the rate I'm going, I'm never going to get there. Although I can give a detailed summary of my novel, talk about all the complex situations the characters go through and even give a short biography on all of my characters, I can't move past writing the beginning of the story. I keep re-writing it over and over again. So, as of tonight, I decided to break the rules (whatever the rules may be). I'll write the story from the middle to the end and go back to the start.
It fits so perfectly with my personality. Remember how I said that introductions make me uncomfortable? Well, apparently, writing introductions or beginnings are also challenging for me. So, let's see how I do with this new rule-breaking strategy. Start with the middle. Wish me luck! I do want to finish this novel already.
I completely understand the fascination with a rejection letter. Because it means that you wrote something, put yourself out there, and although it may not have been accepted, it was read by someone somewhere. Here's to our first rejection letter!
ReplyDeleteOh and I rarely write a story from the beginning. This is partly because I would never write a thing if I did and partly because a characters story just pops into my head and he's usually eager to tell me where he's going but not where he's been (is that creepy?). It makes sense when you think about it. How frequently do we actually tell a story from the very beginning? If I'm telling a story that I'm excited about, I can barely tell it in any comprehensible way, let alone in chronological order.
Great, great post!