My friend, Diana Muñoz Stewart, is one of those cheerful and indefatigable people. So it was a bit of shock to find out she was so completely depressed the other day that she couldn't write and was resigned to watching TV. That was NOT the Diana I know.
I've blogged about the Diana before. She's a wonderful writer of YA paranormal and sci-fi romance, and has already won at least one prize for her work. I like her first novel enough that she and I are adapting it into a screenplay.
The reason for my friend's depression was a rejection letter she had gotten that day. There was not much unusual about the rejection letter itself -- it was cold, formal, uninformative -- but what was unusual was that it was cc'd (not b'ccd) to 238 writers.
After their initial shock, rage, and humiliation, these 238 have turned this fracas into an opportunity to rise above the obstacles to publication. They are communicating to each other, making jokes about the hapless assistant who made the mistake in sending out that rejection letter without blind copying the 238 names, forming groups to support each other, blogging about the experience, and so on and so on.
Diana wrote a blog, which is hysterically funny. Read it here.