Will Shortz Blood Oath

My crossword was rejected.
I realize this is what happens when you try. You fail.

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First you reread the rejection letter making sure you didn't misunderstand. Maybe you didn't get what "sending my regrets" meant the first time?

Then you fantasize about running your judge through with a broken wooden lance; splinters dipped in poisonous acid rend and burn his flesh. You imagine backing your horse up to step on his face, pealing his cheekflesh away from the skull and revealing the terminator grin of a man who obviously has a satanic black heart pumping ichor through his veins instead of blood. Ants and flesh-eating beetles swarm the open wounds on his face and, still screaming, he becomes a skeleton before your eyes. You sear the promise of his suffering into your brain. He will pay for this insult! Like so many others before you, you swear the Will Shortz Blood Oath. How could he fail to recognize the genius of your puzzle? How could he call it "themeless"? It so clearly had a theme... a cute and clever one at that. By the gods, just how cute and clever do you have to be for that bastard to notice?!

Then you start scheming about resubmitting it under a different name. Polishing it up a bit first. Put some zing in those clues. Or maybe there's another place to get it published? Surely there's a viable way out of this pit of rejection.

Then the waves of futility hit... Little cherubic voices, long dormant, start to sing the angelic chorus: "Your not smart enough to do this. Don't embarrass yourself further." The voices pull you down until your head slumps, your heart rate slows, your reddened eye lands upon a bottle of whisky across the room. The mental image of setting fire to a large office building suddenly seems like the only thing that might make you laugh... ever again.

And then finally, you take a deep breath. You remember that making crosswords isn't exactly your day job. You remember that rejection is part of growing and learning. You remember that famous Samuel Beckett quote: "Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

And that, my friends, is the cycle of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Or DABDA for those who remember this from their junior high health class curriculum. Oddly I didn't really recognize it until I was sitting down to write this blog post.