It looks as though I'll be a publishing a book. I repeat: It looks as though I'll be publishing a book!!! The opportunity I've been waiting on for two years has finally arrived. This brings me to today's topic: Rejection.
I've been rejected on the publishing front quite a few times. No surprise there. It comes with the territory, and with the economy as it is, nobody wants to gamble on a first-time author. However, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I really feel that my writing is exceptional, and that I am worth the gamble because I am an abnormally hard working and diligent person. Thinking in this manner caused me to feel dejected at some times, and kept me going at others. I guess my reaction at any one point in time depended on my blood sugar. But finally, my belief in my skill as a writer (of novels) has been validated.
It can be said that my book was rejected because I didn't approach the right publishers at the right time. Perhaps my presentation wasn't quite perfect. Maybe the publisher's perception of my work was skewed due to something in that individual's past. Who knows? I find it interesting that these same issues can be applied to all different types of rejection. Not making a team, not being hired for a job, not being asked on a second (or a first) date.
The lesson to learn is this: When it comes to rejection, some variables are just beyond our control. I could never have predicted that a gatekeeper at a publishing house would gloss over my work because they are adverse to New Orleans, hypothetically speaking. Conversely, I could never have known that a hiring manager would pick me because I wore a pinstripe suit and the candidate ahead of me wore a solid.
In the grand scheme of things, it's all already been worked out. But, that's difficult advice to swallow while reading rejection e-mail #84. Nonetheless, I kind of feel that rejection is just the universe's way of helping us to weed out the unworthy so we can end up with something truly wonderful and worthwhile.
Showing posts with label In my opinion.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label In my opinion.... Show all posts
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
What's a human to do?
I work hard to make this blog positive and uplifting (you never know who is reading it), which is why I try to avoid posting on days that I've been irritable. Like today. But, here I am. Sometimes you just have to get things done, even when the circumstances are not ideal.
Irritability: Having or showing a tendency to be easily annoyed or made angry.
Checking symptoms. . .it's affirmative. I have been irritable today. Not that it's an excuse but I had a LOT of caffeine yesterday and therefore did not get a LOT of sleep last night. I literally felt electrical currents pulsing through my body all night. Then I took a sleep aide way too late and woke with a grogginess that can only be chemically induced. Way to mix the uppers and downers, Rach.
I've also been building Egypt for three days (in preparation for vacation Bible school next week) and generally ignoring all other responsibilities. Today, those neglected tasks started to weigh pretty heavy. That, combined with little sleep, made for the irritability.
As a follower of Christ, it's my job to be constantly aware that others watch how I act and react. As a leader, it's my job to just handle stuff. I feel so foolish when I look back on a situation I handled poorly and realize it was nothing to have lost my cool over. I feel disgusted when I show my temper to others. Praise Jesus, the latter doesn't happen very often. Anymore. Evidence of His work in me.
Conversely, there's something very Stepford-like about people that never show their humanness. I find it hard to trust, befriend, and not be intimidated by people who have it together all the time. Ironically, many different people have told me that I have my lid screwed on too tight. What's a human to do?
Life is a balancing act in so many ways. When we get wobbly, we have to reach for our touchstone. I can't always keep from being irritable and saying or doing something rash, but I can sure ask Him to help me, and forgive me when I fall. I can't find answers and solutions for every bump in the road, or explain every seeming injustice or disadvantage, but I can search His Word until I find peace.
I can't take a heart that's broken make it over again, but I know a man who can.
I can't take a soul that's sin sick, make it make it white, whiter than the snow, but I know a man who can.
Some call Him Savior, the Redeemer of all men.
I call Him Jesus for He's my dearest friend.
If you feel no one can help you and your life is out of hand, well I know a man who can.
"I Know a Man Who Can"
As sung by George Jones.
Irritability: Having or showing a tendency to be easily annoyed or made angry.
Checking symptoms. . .it's affirmative. I have been irritable today. Not that it's an excuse but I had a LOT of caffeine yesterday and therefore did not get a LOT of sleep last night. I literally felt electrical currents pulsing through my body all night. Then I took a sleep aide way too late and woke with a grogginess that can only be chemically induced. Way to mix the uppers and downers, Rach.
I've also been building Egypt for three days (in preparation for vacation Bible school next week) and generally ignoring all other responsibilities. Today, those neglected tasks started to weigh pretty heavy. That, combined with little sleep, made for the irritability.
As a follower of Christ, it's my job to be constantly aware that others watch how I act and react. As a leader, it's my job to just handle stuff. I feel so foolish when I look back on a situation I handled poorly and realize it was nothing to have lost my cool over. I feel disgusted when I show my temper to others. Praise Jesus, the latter doesn't happen very often. Anymore. Evidence of His work in me.
Conversely, there's something very Stepford-like about people that never show their humanness. I find it hard to trust, befriend, and not be intimidated by people who have it together all the time. Ironically, many different people have told me that I have my lid screwed on too tight. What's a human to do?
Life is a balancing act in so many ways. When we get wobbly, we have to reach for our touchstone. I can't always keep from being irritable and saying or doing something rash, but I can sure ask Him to help me, and forgive me when I fall. I can't find answers and solutions for every bump in the road, or explain every seeming injustice or disadvantage, but I can search His Word until I find peace.
I can't take a heart that's broken make it over again, but I know a man who can.
I can't take a soul that's sin sick, make it make it white, whiter than the snow, but I know a man who can.
Some call Him Savior, the Redeemer of all men.
I call Him Jesus for He's my dearest friend.
If you feel no one can help you and your life is out of hand, well I know a man who can.
"I Know a Man Who Can"
As sung by George Jones.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Welcome to my (now) political blog
As a child, I lived in constant fear of going to jail. This was no doubt the result of an adult in my life bending the truth somewhat to insure the Barbie or Bubble-Yum lust in my eyes did not manifest itself in the form of elementary shoplifting. Then, I saw Aladdin, and my fear of jail was shadowed by the fear of losing one of my hands. I learned early not to steal.
Early in the week, almost certainly out of anger with the teenage specimen's whose education I am responsible for, I jotted down some random thoughts that I intended to turn into a blog later in the day. The blog never came to fruition. It's probably a good thing, because this blog would have been a tie-dyed mixture of anger and loosely, wildly connected causes and effects. One sentence I wrote blames a certain Vietnam-era celebrity and her bra-burning for my students' inability to meet a deadline. Oh yes, I did find a way to connect the two in my mind, but if I ever want to be considered a serious, and sane, writer, it's best I save that one for the winter of my writing career when it is acceptable to be crazy and spout off unfounded theories. Oh, why don’t I just live a little? If Michael Moore can get away with it . . .
I believe we are witnessing the degeneration of our society's work ethic. I believe it will be extinct in another generation, or at least endangered. Initiative? Personal responsibility? Hard work? These, not spotted owls, deserve Hollywood's charity balls, and prime real estate on the front pages of America’s newspapers. Fostering these traits in our young people, instilling them in the ones that will lead our nation (what's left of it) should be ousting the left’s insatiable thirst for social programs. However, this is one more area the government has no business sticking its bureaucratic-booger infested nose into. It's a job that should be done by the parents, and somewhere along the way there's been a breakdown . . . one exponentially multiplied by the government’s empowering of citizens to be lazy and desecrate the vision and values of our founding fathers. Our Christian founding fathers, no less.
I am not an expert on child development and I do not have any experience in sociology other than a freshman course, which oddly, probably qualifies me to make this assumption more so than if I had a Ph.D. behind my name (depending on the university). Minimally, three generations of Americans have been raised largely without physical discipline and with both parents working, if they even had two. They’ve been allowed to talk back, allowed to be lazy, and have been handed a weekly allowance and keys to a vehicle after doing very little to deserve either. In our public schools, they have been pushed along, nursed with dumbed-down, propaganda-infested material. When they misbehave or fail to meet standards, often the teacher’s hands are tied. Research shows that children’s intelligence actually decreases the longer they stay in our public schools.
I present to you the group that elected our president! They want fetuses aborted and serial rapists and murderers spared from the needle. They want illegal immigrants to have education and health care while hard-working American men and women avoid preventive exams and take out loans to pay for their children’s college tuition, thanks to inflated taxes. Come to America! It’s the land of opportunity! Unless, you are in fact, an American.
The upcoming workforce (I use that term loosely) and voting class has been taught that it's okay to do wrong, that they're not hurting anything or anybody, that it's some other person's fault and never their own. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people have been taught to be irresponsible by ma and pa government, elected officials even. While drunk, I drove a car off a bridge and left my passenger to drown, but I'm me, so it doesn't count. Who am I? (I’ll let you do the research on this one yourself – it’ll be good for you.)
As I said earlier, I learned stealing was wrong at an early age. . .until, an adult in my life (not one of my parents) witnessed me breaking an item in a store and hurriedly ushered me away from the evidence and out to the car. (Breaking something and not paying for it is still stealing – don’t want anybody to get confused.) That moment stands out in my memory. I was scared, I was sure I was going to jail. I didn't. That one example of escape did not enable me to become a hardened criminal with lose morals. Fortunately, I was raised in a Christian home where there were consequences for my actions and where right and wrong were taught as black and white. One event was unable to undo actual parent involvement and good upbringing. What about all the people that didn’t have that? Thanks to policy being signed as I write this, they will look to the government for everything, including moral example. Consequences? What are those?
So, with the moral, ahem, deficiencies present today, how are those that have had no teaching going to lead, and lead us well? How do they know the policy being put in place is wrong, wrong, wrong, and destructive, destructive, destructive? They’ve never had to sacrifice to keep this country free, never crawled under their desks for bomb drills, they have never had to really fear what the soldiers of another nation could do to them (obviously our armed forces are excluded from this remark). Neither have I, but I do have a moral backbone, and I do read (despite going to public schools), enough to know that the reason I’ve never had to endure those things and fear those things is because we’ve always had a somewhat competent leader at the helm. I’ll even throw Bill Clinton into that pool, but let’s face it – George W. Bush is what kept us safe after 9/11. In fact, he kept us so safe, the great majority of our nation has forgotten we need to fund national defense.
These truths are evident in many, if not all, of the challenges facing our nation right now. And, the worst part is, the people drinking the government's Kool-Aid are being set up for a catastrophic let down. This won't last. Irresponsibility NEVER leads to prosperity. Unless of course, you're on Welfare.
On an online community I sometimes visit, I read a person's comments about Europeans and how their lives are so blissful. How the greed so prevalent in America isn't present there and there is no rat race. I quote: "The people there live on and with so little."
That's because they don't have a CHOICE!! Their wealth is redistributed to the masses!!
Some day soon, that person may have the chance to live just like the people he envies on The Continent. There’s a chance it might not happen in our lifetime, but I think the footers are in place and the slab is about to be poured. Maybe, if there was time to undo decades of poor child-rearing and ethical decay, my generation or the one after me could do something about the walls being raised.
Early in the week, almost certainly out of anger with the teenage specimen's whose education I am responsible for, I jotted down some random thoughts that I intended to turn into a blog later in the day. The blog never came to fruition. It's probably a good thing, because this blog would have been a tie-dyed mixture of anger and loosely, wildly connected causes and effects. One sentence I wrote blames a certain Vietnam-era celebrity and her bra-burning for my students' inability to meet a deadline. Oh yes, I did find a way to connect the two in my mind, but if I ever want to be considered a serious, and sane, writer, it's best I save that one for the winter of my writing career when it is acceptable to be crazy and spout off unfounded theories. Oh, why don’t I just live a little? If Michael Moore can get away with it . . .
I believe we are witnessing the degeneration of our society's work ethic. I believe it will be extinct in another generation, or at least endangered. Initiative? Personal responsibility? Hard work? These, not spotted owls, deserve Hollywood's charity balls, and prime real estate on the front pages of America’s newspapers. Fostering these traits in our young people, instilling them in the ones that will lead our nation (what's left of it) should be ousting the left’s insatiable thirst for social programs. However, this is one more area the government has no business sticking its bureaucratic-booger infested nose into. It's a job that should be done by the parents, and somewhere along the way there's been a breakdown . . . one exponentially multiplied by the government’s empowering of citizens to be lazy and desecrate the vision and values of our founding fathers. Our Christian founding fathers, no less.
I am not an expert on child development and I do not have any experience in sociology other than a freshman course, which oddly, probably qualifies me to make this assumption more so than if I had a Ph.D. behind my name (depending on the university). Minimally, three generations of Americans have been raised largely without physical discipline and with both parents working, if they even had two. They’ve been allowed to talk back, allowed to be lazy, and have been handed a weekly allowance and keys to a vehicle after doing very little to deserve either. In our public schools, they have been pushed along, nursed with dumbed-down, propaganda-infested material. When they misbehave or fail to meet standards, often the teacher’s hands are tied. Research shows that children’s intelligence actually decreases the longer they stay in our public schools.
I present to you the group that elected our president! They want fetuses aborted and serial rapists and murderers spared from the needle. They want illegal immigrants to have education and health care while hard-working American men and women avoid preventive exams and take out loans to pay for their children’s college tuition, thanks to inflated taxes. Come to America! It’s the land of opportunity! Unless, you are in fact, an American.
The upcoming workforce (I use that term loosely) and voting class has been taught that it's okay to do wrong, that they're not hurting anything or anybody, that it's some other person's fault and never their own. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people have been taught to be irresponsible by ma and pa government, elected officials even. While drunk, I drove a car off a bridge and left my passenger to drown, but I'm me, so it doesn't count. Who am I? (I’ll let you do the research on this one yourself – it’ll be good for you.)
As I said earlier, I learned stealing was wrong at an early age. . .until, an adult in my life (not one of my parents) witnessed me breaking an item in a store and hurriedly ushered me away from the evidence and out to the car. (Breaking something and not paying for it is still stealing – don’t want anybody to get confused.) That moment stands out in my memory. I was scared, I was sure I was going to jail. I didn't. That one example of escape did not enable me to become a hardened criminal with lose morals. Fortunately, I was raised in a Christian home where there were consequences for my actions and where right and wrong were taught as black and white. One event was unable to undo actual parent involvement and good upbringing. What about all the people that didn’t have that? Thanks to policy being signed as I write this, they will look to the government for everything, including moral example. Consequences? What are those?
So, with the moral, ahem, deficiencies present today, how are those that have had no teaching going to lead, and lead us well? How do they know the policy being put in place is wrong, wrong, wrong, and destructive, destructive, destructive? They’ve never had to sacrifice to keep this country free, never crawled under their desks for bomb drills, they have never had to really fear what the soldiers of another nation could do to them (obviously our armed forces are excluded from this remark). Neither have I, but I do have a moral backbone, and I do read (despite going to public schools), enough to know that the reason I’ve never had to endure those things and fear those things is because we’ve always had a somewhat competent leader at the helm. I’ll even throw Bill Clinton into that pool, but let’s face it – George W. Bush is what kept us safe after 9/11. In fact, he kept us so safe, the great majority of our nation has forgotten we need to fund national defense.
These truths are evident in many, if not all, of the challenges facing our nation right now. And, the worst part is, the people drinking the government's Kool-Aid are being set up for a catastrophic let down. This won't last. Irresponsibility NEVER leads to prosperity. Unless of course, you're on Welfare.
On an online community I sometimes visit, I read a person's comments about Europeans and how their lives are so blissful. How the greed so prevalent in America isn't present there and there is no rat race. I quote: "The people there live on and with so little."
That's because they don't have a CHOICE!! Their wealth is redistributed to the masses!!
Some day soon, that person may have the chance to live just like the people he envies on The Continent. There’s a chance it might not happen in our lifetime, but I think the footers are in place and the slab is about to be poured. Maybe, if there was time to undo decades of poor child-rearing and ethical decay, my generation or the one after me could do something about the walls being raised.
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