{"id":916,"date":"2022-06-24T14:42:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T13:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/?p=916"},"modified":"2022-06-24T14:42:16","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T13:42:16","slug":"rejection-endings-or-beginnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/rejection-endings-or-beginnings\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejection – Endings or Beginnings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first novel was rejected by over twenty publishers. This coincided with\"\"<\/a> me being made redundant from the management consultancy where I worked and getting\u00a0unceremoniously dumped. Unable at the time to deal with the shame of rejection, every day, I put on a suit and pretended to go to work. I would end up at the library.<\/p>\n

After many months of this \u201csuit routine,\u201d one day, I took out a blank sheet of paper and I filled it with a new narrative that went something like this\u2026. \u201cI am a bestselling novelist, my books are translated internationally, I write plays and films, I teach creativity\u2026\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

At first I laughed at the absurdity, audacity even, but every day, I continued writing out this narrative until it became real to me.<\/p>\n

I went on to set up my own publishing company and PR company, hyped my rejected novel under an alias, got it into the book charts and signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Pru, my alter-ego was shortlisted as publicist of the year! I didn\u2019t go to the award\u2019s ceremony, fearing that if I won, I would have to thank the various parts of myself who were a joy (not) to work with. The publicist who won ended up being my publicist!<\/p>\n

I completed my three novels and then set up my own consultancy taking creativity into organisations.<\/p>\n

Then there was loss, an untidy mess and another ending. This particular ending felt so big that it required an audacious new beginning.<\/p>\n

Having never acted before, I wrote and produced a one woman show. It was for me one of the scariest things I have ever done. It opened up a huge window and is currently being adapted for television. I wrote my fourth novel (currently going through the redirection process) and began teaching again (seems to be a constant) but this time, from a very different perspective.<\/p>\n

Back to that list; all the things that I wrote on that blank sheet of paper have pretty much materialised. There has heart break and rejection along the way and for the purposes of this article, I have edited them out but I have felt them \u2014 deeply. But what I know is that where there is an ending, there is always the possibility of a new beginning.<\/p>\n

So to the things I have learnt and would like to share:<\/p>\n

1) The stories we tell ourselves are the most important.<\/p>\n

2) At any point along a journey, we can change the narrative and tell a different story.<\/p>\n

3) There are two things that are hugely underestimated<\/p>\n

a. The power of intention<\/p>\n

b. The imagination<\/p>\n

4) Put endings to rest with whatever ritual they need so you can start again.<\/p>\n

5) We are meaning making machines. X happened therefore x=y. NO! X could equal z or a, b, c or any other letter.<\/p>\n

Choose the one that is the best for your spirit, the one that that will make it soar.<\/p>\n

May your new beginnings be bold.<\/p>\n

www.preethinair.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first novel was rejected by over twenty publishers. This coincided with me being made redundant from the management consultancy where I worked and getting\u00a0unceremoniously dumped. Unable at the time to deal with the shame of rejection, every day, I put on a suit and pretended to go to work. I would end up at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6M31y-eM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preethinair.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}