I know, I know you don’t want rejection letters in the first place. But if you do get them what do you do? Save them, burn them, give them to the dog, attach them to your chest then threaten to jump off a cliff?

Okay that is an extreme response, but what should a writer do with rejection(s)?
Some authors say that writers should throw them away because keeping rejections can be depressing.

Charlotte Dillon, an aspiring romance author, gives a good reason to keep them in her blog post Taking Inventory of Your Writing. She went through her inventory of rejection letters and discovered a lot about her writing and marketing progress. Both were lower than she’d expected.

Here are four reasons to keep a rejection:
1. It’s a good score card. You get to see how many places you’ve sent your manuscript.
2. It’s a good gauge. Are you receiving more personal rejections than form rejections? Then you’re catching people’s attention and must be doing something right.
3. You’re a collector and like to collect things.
4. You want to save them for your victory dance when you get published and become a rich, bestselling author.

Here are three reasons not to keep a rejection:
1. Just because someone told you to. If rejections make you feel bad and stop your writing progress, get rid of them.
2. You have a long memory. The writing world is small. It’s very possible when you’re published you’re going to meet the people who rejected your work. Don’t waste your energy hating them. They stated an opinion about your work, that’s their job.
3. They don’t say anything. I don’t see the point in keeping form rejections.

So what you do with your next rejection is up to you.