THE 5 REJECTIONS YOU MEET IN YOUR INBOX

When I was a kid, I was a huge baseball fan. I lived and breathed the game: I played Little League¹ , collected baseball cards, watched or listened to games every day and played in fantasy leagues. It was the statistical aspect of the game that fascinated me—especially the realization that baseball was a game where the best hitters in the world made an out 70 percent of the time² . I mean, that’s a lot of failure for people making millions of dollars playing a game. Looking back, my decision to pursue writing professionally was probably influenced by this fascination. What other profession is so rife with rejection and failure³ ?

My relationship with rejection goes back to my childhood as well. When I was 16, I made an unforced error and sent a lightweight, silly short story to a magazine that took itself and its politics really, seriously. To say their rejection note was mean would be an understatement; I think I got my first gray hair after reading it .