Dealing With Rejection

It happens to the best of us: we put ourselves out there, try our hardest, put our heart and soul into something, and get shot down. Our wonderful dreams get yanked right off our pillows and ground to dust under the heel of nasty ol' reality. Maybe it's in a personal area-- wait, you mean Adam Levine doesn't want me to have his babies? What kind of world is this? Maybe it's in our work, because after all, "writer" is pretty much synonymous with "one who sits around waiting to get rejected."

It's the sad truth--if you want to be published, you will get rejected sometimes. Just embrace that now, and remind yourself that it's not the end of the world! (Easier said than not-felt, I know.) There are plenty of reasons for a publisher/magazine/newspaper to reject your writing that have nothing to do with you being a talentless hack. (At least, that's what I tell myself.)

Read this blog post if you don't believe me... She says it much better than I could. (Read "much better" as, with less distraction and punnery.)

Here are a few things you can do to deal with rejection, in my own words/opinion:

1. Take it to heart. I know, your book/story/article is your baby, and you love it with an everlasting gobstopper. Er... love. When you first conceived it, maybe you were 100% convinced that it arose from your writer-womb a fully formed, articulately ideal, magical piece of fabulousness that would forever change the standard to which all books/stories/articles are held. (Or maybe, like me, you immediately cast your hell-spawn aside, too disgusted to even look at it for months. Or a little bit of both.) But maybe your perfect little baby needs some plastic surgery. (Ew. Bad metaphor.) Is there a good reason it was submitted? If you got comments along with the rejection, take them into consideration. Does the editor have a point, or do they just have different tastes? Think about it. Do some rewriting.

2. Ignore it and move on. If you decide that they were just crazy to reject you (which, of course, they were!), take it in stride and walk away tall. Move on to the next prospect.

3. Try, try again. Every famous book, every story you've ever read and loved, was rejected at some point. I guarantee it. Somewhere along the line, someone said, "this will never sell!" Dr. Seuss was told that his books were too different from the current children's market. And you're crapping right they were different from that "Dick and Jane" bland nonsense. That's what propelled him to Beloved Childhood Icon, once somebody was able to see the potential there. Moral of the story, believe in yourself and keep trying. The only way to fail as a writer is to quit trying. Keep writing, keep thinking, keep sending, keep believing!

On a personal note, I'm psyching myself up to receive my first rejection. Harper Voyager (beautiful wonderful people that they are!) will actually be sending out rejections to the submissions they don't want, instead of the radio silence that they had previously intended. I just want to take a second to say that through every moment of this experience, from finding out they'd be accepting un-agented manuscripts to their recent update on the process, Harper Voyager has been super awesome. They extended the submission deadline when the portal was accidentally closed too early (how Sci-Fi does that sound, by the way?), they've been communicative and downright nice to us poor, slavering hopefuls. They've started sending out rejections now, and I await mine with eagerness.

"But Emily," you cry in indignation. "How do you know you'll be rejected?"

Well, my kind-but-misguided friend, because I am currently in the process of proofreading my first draft (which was all I had finished before I submitted it), and it is...let's call it "rough," shall we? Some of the 4,500+ people who submitted their manuscripts had years to perfect their stuff. I'm just a beginner. 

When I do get my email, I'm going to hang it on my wall--not with a nail, sadly... hard to nail through cinderblock. (Read this if you're not sure what I'm talking about) It's going to hang there as a badge of honor, my first real rejection, and hopefully the first of many--because as long as I'm collecting rejections, I'm still trying.