The "Romance" of Rejection
February, Valentine's Day. . .the world was filled with romance, roses, and chocolates for days. . .even weeks...but now it's over! Writers will still think romance as they sit at their keyboard, and conjure up scintillating, sometimes steamy encounters between their heroes and heroines. . .but somewhere, a lonely woman is taping Arnold or Ricky to the refrigerator. (sigh)

Rejection is part of life. If you write, it becomes a very big part of your life. Yes, we hear all the stories about the 137 times Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Love Story (does that date me?) were rejected. Some of us have more than 137 rejections of our own. The writing professionals tell us not to take rejection personally--but hey, our stories are personal. They are torn from our hearts and minds and bodies (can you say carpal?) word by word and offered to what is often (waaay too often) an unappreciative world.

How do we survive rejection? (Hysterical laughter can be heard here, albeit faintly, through your monitor.) I don't know! We just do. After years of rejection--literally, because when I was 13, I secretly submitted a story about Heaven, called "The Shake Up" to Playboy --I threw my first check away. When an envelope came to me, on a bad day, I threw it right in the trash can, unable to face another rejection. A few seconds later, I realized that the envelope had not been done on my poor old manual, but was a magazine's letterhead. I fished it out, tore it open--and had sold a poem to The Church Herald for .00. The moral is--keep on. Yes it hurts, and yes, you'll probably quit at times. Maybe you'll throw checks away. (Hopefully not too often.) But if you have to write--write. People who have to write, do. And the rejection becomes, if not romantic. . .if not bearable. . . look, I'm not sure what rejection becomes. But write anyway!

Start with Love's Lasting Song, if you need a recommendation. Seriously, I'd love you to read my book--and let me know what you think. Leslie

Bullies and School Violence

The most recent school shooting fatalities came at the hand of a 14 year old shooter, who had trouble "fitting in." The young man had moved to California from Maryland, and friends and classmates in Maryland documented complaints from the student that others made fun of him and that he felt bullied and isolated.

The Columbine shooters, too, tried to rationalize their slaughter with complaints that they were picked on by "jocks;" I have read several essays on opinion sites mentioning parents' responsibility to protect their children from "bullies," because "no one else will."

The idea that senseless killing repairs the damage done to one's psyche by others, or that the fact that a student wreaks havoc on a school because he or she has been teased, or even harrassed by others, bothers me greatly.

My first question here, as almost in any other situation involving education, is "Where the blank are the parents/caregivers?" If a child, or an adolescent, is being abused by others, why isn't someone at home aware--if there's any genuine parenting going on? And if someone is aware, why aren't actions being taken?

As a mother, I know that "good" children often are bullied. I had to fight that problem with my own children. Yet by simply backing up their efforts to escape from problems, and speaking to teachers or administrators when necessary, I got 3 children through middle and high school safely. The 4th will graduate next year.) Many times, parental concern and involvement is enough to counter the dangers facing children at school.

As a mother and an educator, I have seen incidents, although isolated, of the bullies being allowed more or less free rein, too. This usually is not because they are athletes, or band members, or whatever; it is, instead, because their own parents are bullies, and school administrators aren't willing to take them on. This is one of the only instances I can imagine where I think parents have both a right and an obligation to raise hell--for everyone's safety. Bullying, by parents or their children, should be unacceptable at any educational institution.

Nevertheless, bullying cannot be seen as an excuse for students to take guns and other weapons to school. There is no excuse. Why do parents never know that guns are missing or children have bought explosives? Why do parents never know that Joe or John or Amy was capable of mowing down classmates? The answer has more to do with our growing lack of responsible parenting than with anything a group of students at school did or didn't do to these teenaged terrorists.

One hopes there will never be another school shooting--but there will. And lookers-on and the media and the shooter's family will all lament the cruelty of others, and how the child didn't fit it. . .but no one seems willing to hold the killer's "connections" accountable for seeing that the child had love and support to help him or her get through the often cruel adolescent years with sanity and understanding of his/her own self worth.

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