The best intentions

A dear friend's manuscript was rejected this past week. I was going to write something profound about rejection for her -  basically rehashing the brilliant advice Carolyn See gives the world in Making a Literary Life (which is one of the absolute necessities for an author). It's a genius book and the chapter on rejection is one of the kindest, most life affirming pieces of advice I've heard in my life (and I've heard more advice than I can possibly count).


But I simply wasn't up for picking the best parts and I certainly was not going to copy down the entire fourteen pages of the chapter. So I will share the final paragraph:

It's not personal. It's not death. It's just a death experience. And the way to defuse rejection is to turn it into a process: cosmic badminton. So that you can wake up in the night, think about it, and actually smile.

And now, something else to keep you smiling:

Sacher Torte with whipped cream and coffee, at the Sacher Hotel, in Vienna.

Because decadent chocolate torte and Viennese coffee with more whipped cream make the world a better place.