No More Rejections - Final Post

The title of this post may be misleading. I will no doubt continue to submit work and receive thanks-but-no-thanks responses, but this is my way of announcing that I am retiring this blog.

300rejections did exactly what I set out for it to do: be a space where I put my writing out into the world. To be accountable to the thing I wanted so badly. This blog helped me stop talking about writing and actually write.

Four years into the blog, I realized that celebrating rejections had morphed into manifesting rejections, and it was time to break that cycle.

I owe this blog so much. It has served as both an archivist and an archeology site. I poured my heart out, examined my pain, and shared my insights. I am so grateful for the readers who came along, read my work, and cheered me on—especially in 2015 when I celebrated my 40th birthday with my 40/40 list and chronicled writing my first work of fiction—during the process of getting a divorce.

All of that set the ground work for my next chapter. A month before the pandemic shut everything down, a writer friend helped me flesh out a new idea. It was going to require technical support, so when we couldn’t leave our houses, I put the idea on the back burner.

Then in November, I shared the idea with Rob Bell and two other men who were attending the online creative workshop my sister and brother-in-law gifted me as an early Christmas present. Rob Bell helped me see my creative pursuits with a different lens and combined with the insights he shared with the others, I left that Zoom meeting ready to move the project to the front burner.

I hired a web design firm! And together we’ve been working to birth this next creative chapter, which will launch on November 1—a mere 361 days after Rob Bell laughed with me as I said this idea out loud and encouraged me to go for it!

Your readership has been an unfailing source of encouragement and motivation, and I hope you will join me for the next leg of this journey.

The final lesson 300rejections taught me, and I wish to share with you is: Take your time. Dream your dreams. Write them down attached to milestones and deadlines. Work day to day toward your goals, but built into those plans and timelines, make space for rest, ideas to marinate, the spirit to move, and a good dose of serendipity.I am ready for this next chapter only because I didn't rush it. I let it wash over me, sink in, and take root.

A wise friend told me, "It’s time to do something different. This blog has served you well, but now it’s time to move on." She told me that FOUR YEARS AGO! I quietly and with patience waited for the next right thing to come. I went about my business of reading, writing, mothering, exploring, gardening, thinking, being a friend. As I did those things, new ideas came to me. I welcomed them. I stayed calm and trusted that I would know when the time and conditions were right. As another friend taught me, I’m not a late bloomer—these things are happening right on time. 

I am filled with excitement, confidence, and a dose of gumption. I have only a sliver of an idea where this new chapter will take me, but I am ready for the ride. My bag's packed, and I'm headed in a new direction. I hope you'll join me and invite others too.

Wheelbarrow Wisdom

I have two wheelbarrows that have given up their primary purposes as weight-bearing haulers. Instead of sending them to the landfill, they are spending their retirement as planters for my flowers in the front yard.

With more dirt under my nails and more gardening experience under my belt, I choose the summer flowers with more confidence and knowledge of their previous performances.

One summer I was interested in changing things up, so I paired petunias with geraniums. Both plants handle heat and direct sun well. (They've been known to thrive even when I forget to water them between rain showers--a real bonus!) These wheelbarrow planters are bathed in sunshine all afternoon and evening. 

I planted each of the small blossoms in both planters, and the petunias took off. They thrived in their new soil and grew so much the geraniums got lost in the petunias' expansion. I have a sentimental attachment to geraniums--my elderly next door neighbor had pot after pot of red geraniums around her front walk, and while geraniums don't have a beautiful fragrance, that smell takes me right back to my childhood.

The truth is I don't actually like petunias. But...I really like how their pops of color and thick growth are visible from the sidewalk and street, and that's what I'd hoped for when I filled my planters.

As I consider the changes that have come to every aspect of work in the past 12-18 months, my petunias come to mind. For most people, change is not their preference. It's comforting to know what to expect day in and day out, but that comfort can turn to complacency and even inefficiencies when it's not challenged. Nearly every function of my job has changed both from the remote work perspective related to the global pandemic as well as other staffing changes that came about. 

If I'm honest, the shift to remote work presented an opportunity to be plucked out of the "this is how we've always done it" mode. I can think of no fewer than three daily processes I oversee that have been streamlined out of necessity while working from home. I will return to the office in a few weeks with improved processes and renewed energy tucked into my laptop bag. 

These changes--improvements--are like the petunias in my wheelbarrow planters. I didn't expect that either would perform so well or that I could become fond of them--if not outright like them. But now that I've identified how they both function and improve my garden and work, there's no going back.