This week for Wee-Bit Wednesday I’m going to share a little something different with you. It’s not from my WIP, but rather a funny little ditty I came up with that was inspired by a post from my blogging buddy, Michelle Stephens. Last week she wrote a post called Rejection Means You’re a Real Writer. In her post Michelle talks about how she’d received a form rejection letter and instead of letting it get her down, she cracked open a Diet Cherry Pepsi (to which she adequately adds pictures to the post for proof), reveled in its refreshing zero calorie cherry fizz, and proceeded to sit back down to continue writing. Because as Michelle says, “Really, there’s just no other option but to keep writing.”
Michelle’s post avec pics got my crazy mind going. I’d like to hear a Diet Cherry Pepsi commercial just like the old hysterical Bud Light radio commercials. You know, the one where the cheesy 80s guy sings, “Real American He-e-e-roooo-o.” We could dedicate it to the “pre-published writer who received a first rejection letter”! So, the following is my rip-off tribute to those Budweiser Commercials, a trademark lawsuit waiting to happen campaign suggestion for Diet Cherry Pepsi, and a toast to my fellow writers. *ahem*
(Oh, please read the following in a very deep and over-dramatized male voice and the italicized bracketed words should be sung in a hybrid voice of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.)
Diet Cherry Pepsi presents…Real Writers of Genius…
[Real Writers of Ge-e-eniuuu-us]
Today we salute you, Amateur Writer Who Received Their First Rejection Letter.
[Mis-ter Amateur-Writer-Who-Received-His-First-Rejec-tion Leh-eh-tter!]
Ignoring your day job, your night job and even your family, you hide behind your laptop with squinty eyes and furrowed brow, typing furiously until the pads of your fingers become permanently flat.
[Creepy hands of an al-i-en]
At long last it’s ready. The work of genius that came from your brain and out of your deformed fingers is finally ready to be sent out into the world where it will be revered as one of the greatest works of its time. Or of its genre. Or of its sub-genre. Or maybe just of your city.
[Gotta be better than some-thing]
Then one day you open your mail to find your S.A.S.E. and inside is a form letter with a coffee stain in one corner and a stamped signature in the other, because they couldn’t even be bothered with signing their own name. The rejection is cold and impersonal, yet you rejoice.
[This is SU-per duper awe-some!]
Why? Because this form rejection letter doesn’t just say that someone out there thought your material wasn’t fit to grace the mutilated end product of a once-proud tree…it also says, “You, sir, have arrived.”
[I’m coming in for a lan-ding]
Yes, you are now considered a REAL writer. You grabbed your fear by the proverbial cojones and put your baby out there, knowing she might be sliced into ribbons. And when she was, you smiled in self-absorbed satisfaction, sat down, and began writing some more.
[Not ever gonna sto-op]
So crack open an ice cold Diet Cherry Pepsi, Real Writer. You may have been rejected by the world, but you’ll always be number one, in your head.
[Mis-ter Amateur-Writer-Who-Received-His-First-Rejec-tion Leh-eh-eh-eh-tterrrrrr!]
Thank you. *bows stage left* Thank you. *bows stage right* Thank you. *bows center stage*
