H is for Having Goals #AtoZChallenge

It's been more than a month since I wrote my first post for Operation Awesome!

This is important to note simply because that first post was about my writing goal for the year: to garner 100 rejections in 2018.

At the time, I had received three (3) rejections.

As of today, I've received four (4).

This is not, as one may be inclined to hopefully assume, because everything I've submitted has been accepted. Ha! I really wish. I've also only gotten about four acceptances for articles and one poem.

The reason my rejection rate is so low is simple: I haven't been submitting. I haven't been pitching. I for sure haven't been querying! No one has had any reason to reject me, therefore, I have not been rejected.

This is not a win, my friends. I know that for me at least there can be this idea that if I'm not being rejected, that's a win, but the truth is, in this industry? It goes nothing < rejection < acceptance.

In other words, if you're not getting rejected it means you're not trying. [And by "rejection," yes, I know so often publishers and editors don't send actual rejections, so 100 percent, if someone ignores you, that's a rejection and it counts.]

There's a lot of reasons for why I haven't been writing, pitching, and getting rejected as much as I'd wanted to. For one, there's the fact that life never turns out the way I plan it in my calendar. Every night, I go ahead and schedule "to-dos" for the next day, giving myself 30-minute blocks of time to work on a task, and then 10 minutes in-between tasks. On paper, I can be super productive. In reality, I sleep in, spend too much time on Twitter, don't feel like completing a certain task, watching "Friends" instead... I am human, and I cannot be productive 100 percent of the time.

I'm learning that that's okay! So I've scheduled in break times! Ha, yes, I literally put "watch Friends" or "watch YouTube videos" on my schedule. It makes me feel good.

Of course, the biggest reason ties into my post last week: I've had a bad year for mental health. It's been insanely rough. I haven't sat down to draft my novel in almost two months. I've barely written a word of an essay. It's all I can do to manage these weekly posts. Which, I'm super glad I have to do, because writing is how I survive.

I have a goal. Having a goal is the first step! I'm halfway there. It's just that the step from "having" a goal to "acting upon" said goal and then finally "achieving" your goal is yawningly wide.

I'm hoping that being open and public about what I want and how I'm struggling to achieve it will help. You know, public accountability and all that.

Hopefully by this time next week, I'll have a new rejection to chat about, or at least will be able to rave about all the work I got done. <3