Dealing with Rejection Letters: Why Editors Say No to Your Story and What to Do Next

Dealing with Rejection Letters: Why Editors Say No to Your Story and What to Do Next

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

Negativity vs Positivity

I know who I am. I know what I have done. I know where I am from. I know where I am going. I don’t know where I will end up. Am I going to let people perturb me. Am I going to let them throw me off balance.

No, for I shall be positive. I shall focus on the lotus and not the swamp. I shall appreciate the rose and not be afraid of the thorns. I shall look for the positive in the midst of negativity.

I shall find my diamonds in the coal mine for that is where they are first found.

Sonnet 116

My definition of love:

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Coffee shops

Why is that it is easier to do work one can’t do at home in a coffee shop?

Something about a coffee shop makes it easier to start a procrastinated task.

Please wash your hands

Beyoncé - Flaws And All