Rejection As A Form Of Motivation

Rejection has been coming up in my life a great deal lately. By which I mean twice. One time it was I who was rejecting someone (and let me tell you, that did not feel good to do) and the other time was stumbling onto Tiffany Moore's blog.

I first came across Tiffany's writing when someone posted on some social network site about her blog post on pricing your work. I've had that particular blog post sitting in my dock for almost a week now and I look at it from time to time when I am feeling like I need a reality check (which I do. Often).

This evening I decided to look her up to see what else she had going on her blog plate. Her latest blog post (and honestly, the only one I've read so far as I felt I needed to put this down in words before my Lesser Half decided it was a bad idea) is called 100 Rejection Letters!

The basic purpose of the post is Tiffany calling herself out to work harder, be uncomfortable and put herself out there. But not in an unrealistic way. Her goal is to get 100 rejection letters this year. Not 100 responses, not 100 people crawling up to her on their bellies begging for her to be in their magazines. 100 rejections means that she'll put herself out to more than 100 people and places, places she may not have tried if she felt she didn't have a chance, she is going in EXPECTING to not have a chance, and seeing what happens (that last sentence was very comma-heavy).

Being on the cusp (really? That's how you spell "cusp"? I will have to ask m-w.com to make sure) of finishing a series, I feel it is my duty to my own work to do something similar. I don't know who will want to be part of my barrage of nudi-red-headed-girls-in-nature series, but I'm willing to find out. This doesn't mean I'll haphazardly fling portfolios shoddily made to any gallery I see. I will research the galleries that I feel suit this style and series and content. I will go beyond my little pond of curators and send my fish hook to the farthest reaching point of the world. I will decide who I think is appropriate for my work and then see who feels the same way.

I don't expect that anyone will fall under a spell for my work and I may just end up showing these out of a warehouse that I rented for a plate of cookies. And I will probably end up with more than 100 rejections. But isn't that the fun of it?

What I've learned from my experiences both as the one being rejected and also the one having to reject the work or ideas of someone else is that it is DIFFICULT TO EXPERIENCE WITHOUT FEELING TERRIBLE. So if I try to achieve rejection, maybe it will make the sting tickle instead. I will let you know.

Until then, onward and upward. The best and worst is yet to come!