Oh Yeah, Reject Me Harder
I tore open my first rejection letter ever this afternoon and Scotch taped it to my bathroom wall. I know the bathroom wall’s not a particularly original home for rejection letters here at the Inland Northwest Center for Writers (my TV screen would have been better – the more rejections, the less I’m able to watch), and it’s probably pathetic that I haven’t submitted any manuscripts in four years, but whatever – Samuel Beckett. I probably should have been inspired to write/revise after such an awesome Get Lit! a few weekends ago, but I’m drawn more toward failure, much like a buzzard is drawn to a corpse, so I fought back this afternoon at the Rocket Bakery, took the revised draft of the essay, which is quite frankly about to petrify, or is going to sink if I poke any more holes in it, or is about to be euthanized if it doesn’t find a home, or whatever stupid metaphor you wanna use (is wanna all right? Is gonna alright? I use both alot. They’re both alike, and certainly not a like. Fuck – I hate to compromise prescriptivist tendencies, but you’ve gotta [see?] be descriptive, too, or else thou wilt find thyself drawn and quartered in the grammar wars. Thank you for addressing this, by the way, Kathryn. Just in time for galleys, too. *high-five*), attached it accordingly with cover letters to five journals, and left-clicked my subs into uncharted waters. (I know. Sorry. Puns have become a guilty pleasure, thanks to a certain second year nonfictioneer, whose first name begins with Erik and last name begins with Johnson.) There was discussion a little over a week ago about over-drafting, under-drafting, and when we know if a manuscript is ready to be (e)mailed. I don’t know if mine was ready. I think it was, but it could also be 1,000 times better. Or worse. “My essays are like my children,” I sometimes hear writers say. I understand the sentiment – doting over lines, rearranging, nurturing, planting, and so on. I also hear writers say they never reread their published pieces, because they wind up hating them, and are more concerned about churning out new work. What a thing to say! “Yeah, my son got accepted to Harvard, but I’m pretty upset about the way he turned out, in spite of his praise, so I’m never going to talk to him again. In the meantime, I’m working on impregnating (or giving birth to) like six other babies, who will hopefully be better.”
What’s your take on rejection? I know this has been addressed before, but I’m always a little late to the game, so you’ll have to forgive me.
It’s a topic we have to continue to address. For us, it’s a way of life.
It’s not just writers, though. My sister is a painter and my brother is a musician and we all like to swap rejection stories. I guess we got too much acceptance from our mom so we all chose to get knocked around.
I love the TV idea. Congratulations, Dude. I like sitting around the rejection campfire with you.
On Saturday, I opened my mailbox to find a rejection letter. But this one had a little note from the editor, encouraging me to keep submitting the piece. I was thrilled. Thrilled by a rejection letter.
I think writers have (or should have) a very different perception of rejection than the normal people do. Because we are in a field where rejection is the norm. I’ve heard statistics (they’re probably all made up, but they seem believable to me) about good writers averaging 42 rejections per acceptance. I don’t know who these good writers are or what defines “good” but I take it as a comfort, knowing that I’m not the only one getting rejected.
On a slightly separate note, I don’t think posting all your rejection letters is necessarily healthy. I used to do that but when I got a full wall of them, I finally got mad, tore them down, and threw them all away. I’m keeping my nice rejection, though. And, of course, I log every rejection I get in a submissions log I keep on my computer, tracking where my stories have been sent.
I’m okay with rejection letters because it means I’m sending things out. But, there was a week when I was PMSing, stressed, and didn’t have any chocolate or alcohol in the house, and got THREE rejection letters in one batch of mail. That week, I went a little crazy and destroyed all my rejections–not just the three new ones.
I don’t know if this will help, but one of the writers organizations I belong to has different levels of memberships. Once you get your first rejection letter, you move up one level to PRO–meaning you are now a professional writer because you are seriously seeking publication. Doesn’t matter if someone took your submission or not.
I used to use rejections to prompt me to send out more material. I wanted to always have five submissions out at a time, so I would wait and wait to get a rejection so I could send something to a new place. Instead of it being a rejection, the little slips of paper became instructions to keep going. At least in my strange fantasy world.
I go on an overnight drunk and pretend all sorts of inspiring things happen when I opened that envelope but really it just sucks.
[...] plummeted to the lowest low when Monday’s mail brought two rejection letters. Scott, Shira, and Sam have already “barked” on the subject and I don’t have anything to add other than that this [...]
[...] plummeted to the lowest low when Monday’s mail brought two rejection letters. Scott, Shira, and Sam have already “barked” on the subject and I don’t have anything to add other than that this [...]