When the going gets tough……
When I decided that I wanted to be a writer in 2018, the whole world felt like it was waiting for me to conquer it. Even though I had no prior education in creative writing at 19 and my history with books just started and ended with me being an avid reader, I started the journey of realizing my dream. I wrote my cringe-worthy poems and short stories and believed that I was the next best writing talent to emerge from Africa. The first publication I submitted to was called, The Sun Magazine, what a good omen, right? I’d shine as bright as the largest star in the sky. I imagined the editors marvelling at my talent and reaching out to me to beg me for more. Mentally, I was careening on a free highway without a care in the world until I saw these words, “….this submission isn’t right for The Sun…”
My mental car somersaulted and crashed in slow motion; the glass floated and pierced my skin in a dozen different places and the world that seemed to be waiting for me glitches like it was a hologram simply shielding the brutality of the real world from me.
The email that they had sent me opposed my idea of who I saw myself to be. They had been so polite and that seemed to add salt to my injuries. I contemplated for days after that, on whether this was really my chosen path. Was I meant to be a writer, if so, why did they reject me? I decided they simply didn’t like that piece, which had to be it. All I needed to do was send them the rest of my work; they would probably find something they liked among my pieces. I eagerly sent another, then another and then, another. I only earned that same recycled rejection email, blinking like an electronic sign, repeating the same thing. They had written, “….this isn’t a reflection on your writing…”, and all I could think about is why then, didn’t you accept my submission?
My conclusion was simple, I wasn’t good enough. I expected this observation to drown me in a sea of self-doubt from which I’d never emerge. My reaction could be described as almost hysterical and possibly in denial, I couldn’t accept it. I had something, perhaps, it was a dim bulb but it still supplied light. So naturally, I did what everyone did when they wanted to get better at something, I had Google consult me for free and it was worth it. Fast forward to the end of COVID-19-ridden 2020, a writing scholarship competition that I had entered emailed me to tell me that I wasn’t included among the winners but the author who was organising this competition in collaboration with a notable atelier decided to sponsor ten people and I was among the fortunate ten. Fast forward once more to 2021, I entered a writing competition, my first ever, and my story was chosen to be long-listed which meant that it would be published in their upcoming anthology.
Can you imagine my joy? I was ecstatic. The hologram was gradually solidifying and if I had taken The Sun’s rejection and accepted that I was not a writer, my future would have been different from this. I had come to realize that The Sun didn’t reject me, they rejected my stories. As an artist or student or mother, whatever we are, as human beings we tend to feel that any form of rejection of something that we produce translates to a rejection of us because whatever we produce holds a small piece of us. That is not true, it is okay to fail and when you do, it doesn’t mean that you can’t succeed. It means that certain areas need improvement.
I grow and improve as a writer every day, it is an endless process. I can now say that I wouldn’t have accepted my earlier stories either. I didn’t know how better I could become if my stories weren’t rejected. You can say The Sun enabled me to shine brighter. More rejections will definitely come my way but I’m prepared to look at them as a form of constructive criticism. The tough get going when the going gets tough, it might sound cliché but it rings true.