Bernadette Benda

(Yes, yes I know I said that I was getting back on a regular blogging schedule. And yes, I realize I did not post on Saturday. But that was because I had a performance on Friday (all day sort of thing), which is when I usually write my Saturday blogs. So really I just picked a bad week to start consistently posting again. But here I am.)

So um, I have some exciting news to share with you all….

I GOT PUBLISHED.

I lowkey feel like I could go on about this forever and high-key feel like I’ve been screaming this at everyone who comes within 6ft of me (which, like, social distancing people). So I am going to scream it at all you people, too.

I GOT PUBLISHED.

I had an article published in Thought Catalog which you can read here.

I keep on screaming forever about how excited I am, but instead of that I’m going to share something a bit more constructive:

I’ve been trying to get something published, anything published, for like the past ten years. Poetry, fiction, you name it (I’m putting all of this aside from the querying process which is…still in process). And that was hard, frustrating, and wearying. I think every writer can relate to this on some level. That feeling of it will never happen. Because you’ve gotten too many rejections already, and because you’ve been trying for too many years.

I don’t mean to turn this into, “it took me so long but look I finally did it and now everything’s amazing! Just keep trying!” thing because….1: for me having this article is crossing a bridge, not the final step in a journey. 2: I hate cheap sentiment.

I can’t look someone in the eye (or look myself in the eye) and say as long as you keep trying you’ll get there, you’ll get published, your book will be published, etc. But I can look someone (and myself) in the eye and say if you don’t try, then it won’t happen.

Yeah, yeah it sucks sending out submission after submission after submission for years and years and only getting no, no, no, no, no. But you know what’s worse? Never sending anything out, never even trying at all, because then you’re never even giving yourself a chance.

 1% chance is better than 0% chance.

(I have to side track: I’m at the lake again, and there’s this old guy sitting on a bench, petting his really fat pug. And the pug is a stroller. I’m not a vet, but I think it might do that pug some good to be walking.)

It’s frustrating, really frustrating, like throw yourself off the Cliffs of Insanity frustrating to be constantly submitting for years and getting nothing but a ten foot stack of rejections in return.

But what are you gonna do, stop?

I mean if you decided one day that writing isn’t your thing and you want to be a zoologist, sure, that’s one thing. Go be a zoologist. But if you’re looking at that ten foot stack of rejection letters and still feel deep in your gut that you’re a writer, or at least that you want to be a writer, then you can’t quit. You quit, and it’s not gonna happen. You can’t get an acceptance letter if you never send anything out in the first place.

I guess it’s just that whole “if you never jump you’ll never know if you can fly” sentiment.

Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

I guess that classifies writers as insane.

BUT, not quite.

The thing about rejection is that it forces us to try harder. It forces us to try new and different things. It forces us to improve our writing, explore writing different things.  It’s throwing a noodle at a wall and hoping it sticks. You are doing the same thing over and over again, but you’re doing it with a different noodle. Thus you have a chance.

Keep throwing those noodles.