I learned early on that — when it came to freelance writing — it was important to bounce back quickly from rejection, keep up the momentum, and flip that pitch.

Because of that early lesson, I’ve never felt too much anxiety when pressing “send” on my query letters and, upon receiving rejections, I’ve typically only felt the barest twinge of disappointment before turning to the next publication on my pitch list. After all, rejection is a reality of the freelance writing life, and not everyone is going to fall all over themselves to publish my work. In fact, despite my being a total genius (obvs), I’m pretty sure at least some of my ideas have been pretty weak.

So my mental reaction when I received my first-ever rejections from my first-ever literary agent queries sort of caught me by surprise. [Read more…]