The Beginning of Believing

First off, welcome to "On the Literary Rebound"! As aspiring authors, Erika and I hope that you find this blog helpful but more importantly, inspiring.  

To understand why Erika and I are creating this blog, you should know a little bit about “THE DAY”.  Come on, we’ve all had one.  The day when you say something like, “I’m done.”  “I quit.”  “I can’t do this.” It doesn’t matter what you said, the fact is that we’ve all been there – and this is what happened on my “DAY”.

It was the day I got my 9^th rejection letter (trust me there’s been plenty since then, but number 9 was a big deal!) Anyway, that’s the day I sat in front of my computer (sadly, all day) teary-eyed and emotionally drained  - every dream I had rolling down my cheeks.  I wasn’t researching more agents.  I wasn’t even writing.  I was desperately begging the computer to come alive and find some source of inspiration for me.  Some kind of miraculous website that would come right out and say, “Toni – don’t give up!  Live your dreams, you can do it!”  (Yes, I was so pathetic at that very moment that I imagined everything from the website to the beautiful, inspiring music in the background!)

All I wanted was something that would extinguish the incessant doubt that was ablaze in my mind.

And do you know what I found? 

NOTHING!

Now, I will be the first to admit that my state of mind was NO where near being adequate enough to research anything, but with hindsight so clear, I feel as if I wasn't supposed to find anything that day - because if I had, I would have never thought about creating this blog.  Granted it’s been four months and a lot more rejection letters later, but hey, give me a break – writing takes a LOT of time (as I am sure you are aware of!)

And so the question remains, why does anyone want to follow another blog?  Because.  When they get a rejection (and yes, I’m afraid statistically you’ll get at least one) they will have a place to go. 

Rejection leads to re-writes, and re-writes lead to hope.  Hope that one day the all too familiar “I’m afraid this project is not a fit for me” will be replaced with “Oh!  I LOVE your manuscript - I can’t wait to sell this!”  (Okay, so that’s a bit dramatic, but remember IT’S OKAY TO DREAM)

Erika, my sweet friend who has kindly agreed to venture in this crazy idea of mine, and I have a standing joke between us.  When one of us is a little down, whether from the never-ending waiting game, or another rejection, we joke that SOMEDAY, when we are published we will look back and laugh! And yes, you will too!  We all have dreams of "Someday", we just have to work for them!

And so, by our own definition, “On the Literary Rebound” is that very special friendship that will always be there to lift you up, reminding you that hope is all that's needed to make your literary dreams come true – Have faith in yourself and your talent – we will be here for you when you need us!

-         - Toni