Am I Officially a Writer?

I received my first rejection letter last week. It wasn't too horribly devastating as I thought the first one would be. I suppose, I had prepared myself for it, so much for positive thinking. I've heard so many terrible stories of writers being rejected dozens of times, but persevered until they are now successful authors.
Even J.K. Rowling had her share of rejections.

I've been absorbing the letter for the last few days and have had great words of encouragement from family and friends. Everyone who has read my manuscript thinks IT'S JUST COFFEE needs to be published.

Two people in particular were very helpful.

From Lynne:
You ARE officially a writer. You have finished a BOOK. A book that is a very good read. KEEP TRYING!!!

From Marcy:
Peter Bart, editor of Variety:
The Art of Facing Upward. I thank my colleague Anne Thompson for blogging J.K. Rowling's brilliant commencement address at Harvard. In it Rowling described the value of failure - and the message is relevant in a town like Hollywood, where rejection is a day-to-day experience.

Having become the richest non-royal woman in England, Rowling recalls what it felt like earlier in her life to have a marriage implode, to be jobless, a lone parent and a failed writer.

In retrospect, she says, "Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. I discovered that I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity."
Read that again, folks, next time a casting director says "you're wrong for the part" or a development dweeb tells you your script sucks. You, too, could become a billion-dollar novelist.

Along with the encouragement, I received a suggestion from my boss at school.
She said, "Why not write about your Hollywood adventures?"
I had thought about that before, but decided against it at the time. They have been too personal, but since some time has passed-- almost two years, I still talk about the stories with friends and laugh out loud. Meeting celebrities, going to movie premieres and pre-screenings, having a car towed, going to the Jay Leno show, and meeting interesting women in a fan club -- None of the stories could be made up, so I spent the weekend outlining the new manuscript, could be a hoot of a book! We'll see...

So now I'm off to sending out more query letters and starting the process all over again.

Thank you everyone for the love and support,
Joy