Keeping a Compliment Journal

How capturing kind comments has kept me positive throughout my writing career

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

In 1919, author F. Scott Fitzgerald garnered some 122 rejections, which he said were enough to “paper his bedroom walls.”

I’m sorry, but F. Scott Fitzgerald was doing it wrong.

Ditch the rejection slips. Keep the compliments instead.

Newbie writers keep the rejection slips, and I understand why. Sometimes they have value. Sometimes, there is a nugget of information that helps you strengthen your writing.

And there’s something positive about rejections, too. After all, they prove that not only have you written something, but you’ve also dared to submit that writing to the big wide world. Well done you.

But when you’ve been writing for as long as I have (well over thirty years) rejection slips are as common as breathing. What’s kept me sane over all these decades has been my compliments journal.

Why?

Because we always remember the rejections. We never remember the positives.

By keeping a record of the positives I’ve received over the years, I have something tangible that lifts me on the darkest of writing days when projects come back rejected, or the words won’t flow…