There are three responses to proposals: interest, rejection, or silence. It’s best to prepare yourself for a lot of the latter, but even preparation doesn’t take the sting off of number 2.

On Monday I got my first rejection. Succint, polite. “We’ve read your work with interest,” and a couple of lines later, “we are going to pass.”

No problem. Expected. Suck it up, give yourself a couple of minutes to grieve, then pull up the spreadsheet and see who to submit to next.

I took the top image in Gros Morne, Newfoundland. It’s not a black and white photograph: the weather was just devoid of colour that day.