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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16083
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Unfortunately, if you can't face rejection of your work, you can't be a writer. The sad truth is even the most successful writers have all had the experience of being at one time or another critically panned, rejected or otherwise. As the saying goes, if you _can_ give up writing, do so, if you can't... you're doomed to be a writer!

One thing that can help, even though it is difficult, is to try to gain some emotional distance with your work --not with writing it, but the finished project. It's hard not to feel like you are being personally rejected when people reject your work, but it actually _isn't_ personal, even when it feels like it is. And while it may be that the work has some fatal flaw, it might also be that it didn't succeed for reasons entirely unrelated to how good it is.

I do also recommend reading the book ["Mortification"](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0060750928). I know it made _me_ feel much better to read about famous and well-respected authors facing empty book signings and worse (like the author who found a used copy of his book in a clearance bin --only to realize it was the copy he had signed for his parents!)

Original score: 1