I am coaching a colleague as he begins his foray into the field of writing. Having been wildly successful in his career and reaching the top of his profession, he thought—like many others—that writing would be easy. He finished his first short story and submitted it to a contest, expecting to receive the accolades that have followed him his entire adult life. When he got the rejection, he wrote the following to me: “If I don't have the ability to write 1000 words, then I am in the wrong field.” I thought long and hard as to how I wanted to respond. Should I be encouraging to a fault, telling him how the judges of that contest were probably illiterate? Or should I respond by saying he was right, he is in the wrong field? Of course, none of those were options since neither was true. Instead, this is what I wrote to him upon his declaration that he was “in the wrong field”: “DON'T BE RIDICULOUS!!!! Rejection is part of writing. It's subjective......

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