I’ve been reading through Pat Schneider’s Writing Alone and with Others, which has been a super helpful resource in getting me over writer’s block and back on track in seeking publication. She has a lot of different exercises at the end of each chapter and one of them was “write about a time your writing got rejected.” So I decided to give it a shot…bear with me as I recount the tales of a woe-begotten nine-year-old.

I was homeschooled most of my life. (I can still hear the questions now: “You poor dear, did you ever get to socialize?” “Do you actually learn anything at home?” “I bet you didn’t have to work hard at all”).

All that nonsense aside, I did have a couple of years where I attended a private Christian school for half of third grade (my parents pulled me out due to differences they had with the teacher) and all of fourth grade. My older sister had already taken fourth grade from this teacher and we all liked her, so I got to stick around for the entire school year.

The class had eighteen boys and seven girls. And you’d better believe that those seven girls still had their cliques of “who’s popular” and “who’s not.” I have always been a middle range girl – never popular, but never completely rejected from either circle. It is what it is.

I loved my fourth grade teacher. She challenged us, made us laugh, made us feel special. We all wanted to please her. But, of course, no one can be perfect all the time. I just wanted to say up front that I will always think fondly of her before I launch into my little spiel about an instance where she may have hurt my little nine-year-old heart.

She had these amazing little sheets of paper that were called something like “Doodle Stories.” That’s probably not the original name, but I can’t remember the proper title. All of these sheets had some sort of strange squiggle or line on them – just one – randomly placed somewhere on the page. It was our duty to turn that doodle into a drawing.

I loved those doodles. I already had an interest in art at that age and any time she gave us a chance to draw instead of do schoolwork, I took it.

One day she changed up the flow. “Class, after you finish your doodle, I want you to come up with a short story to describe what is going on in that picture.”

Drawing and writing? It was like hitting the jackpot! Two of my favorite things combined into one. I got my doodle and immediately started working on it.

At this point in my life, I already knew I was a strange child. I didn’t quite fit in with the stereotypical girl. I hated playing house, I wasn’t quite up to fashion standards, and I enjoyed catching bugs and playing tag with the guys instead of gossiping about who I liked with the girls. But my teacher always saw me as a polite, feminine sort of girl, so I think she was rather shocked with what I came up with for my story.

My doodle turned into an alien: the typical alien of the 90s with a bulbous head, green body, and huge eyes.

I watched with delight as my little guy took form. I had a story in mind already, all about the little alien man coming to earth for the first time and meeting a group of kids who adopted him as their new brother. The story came to life and I wrote it quickly before I could lose any of the details.

I was so proud of my work by the time I finished. My little alien was bright and cheerful on the page, my story was nearly two whole pages long.

I marched proudly to the teacher’s desk, confident that I had covered all of my bases, that I would make her laugh, that she would love my story because it was different from anything I had written before. It had life, it wasn’t just a stale “this is what happened to me over the summer” story.

She took my doodle and my story with a smile and began to read it while I hovered anxiously at her desk.

My little heart went from pit-pat to thump thump when I saw the first frown appear. She turned the paper over to finish the story, her frown deepening.

Oh dear, what did I do wrong? Did I spell a word wrong? I almost won the spelling bee earlier this year, please tell me I didn’t let her down and spell something wrong!

She finished the story and set the paper down on her desk, turning to look at me with puzzlement in her eyes. “I thought I told you to write a story.”

I gulped. “I did…the alien….”

“I don’t want stories with aliens. I want something about what’s on earth. Something about families or friends.”

I blinked rapidly, trying not to cry. (I have always cried far too easily). “But….”

She handed me a new sheet with a squiggle on it. “Please try again.”

I took the doodle and my alien and his little story back to my desk and sat down dejectedly. I could only stare at the new doodle as anxiety climbed up my throat.

I didn’t know I could write a wrong story. I didn’t know there were rules to what was acceptable in writing and what was not.

I tried to draw a new doodle, but the closest thing I could up with was something like a French fry. Were French fries acceptable material for stories? If I personalized a French fry, would I get a detention?

Fortunately, we ran out of time for the exercise before I found out if both my ideas were unacceptable.

My poor teacher probably had no idea how much her rejection of my story impacted me. I probably shocked her with what I chose to write about because I had given her no indication that I enjoyed writing weird little stories.

Fortunately, even though it was disappointing at the time, this experience taught me a good lesson: not everyone is going to like your stories.

It is especially important to know that even my most fervent supporters will not always like what I have to say. I have a very encouraging and loving family, but there are some stories I don’t show them anymore because I know they won’t like them. They’re too strange, they’re too close to home, they don’t stick with the “real world.” And I’ve learned to be ok with that.

It still hurts to get rejected, for sure, but I’ve learned that rejection doesn’t always means that the writing is bad. Sometimes it means that the writing is simply not that person’s preference. That is an important distinction to make.

So listen to your critics, sift through what they have to say about your writing. Separate the good from the bad. Accept the advice (“I think this character lacks depth”), but reject preferential statements (“You shouldn’t have talking animals in this story, it’s about the people. Talking animals makes it unrealistic.”)

And no matter the disappointments you face, keep writing!