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The Rejection Letter

 


I have had my share of rejection. Anyone who wants to pursue writing will become well acquainted with it. It is part of the game. You don’t let it get to you, or you will give up; one or the other. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling was rejected twelve times before a publisher finally accepted it. What if she had given up after eleven tries? I have a couple of novels that I tried and tried and tried to get published with no luck. But then I had one that was accepted on the first try. Was it better than the other two? I don’t think so. It’s a mystery. Either way, you learn to make rejection, if not a friend, at least something to be tolerated. Some authors get creative with their rejection letters. I heard of one who built a waste basket out of theirs. Now that’s creativity for you.

A writer can take rejection very personally. If I get rejected, I need to remember that it is not me they are rejecting. It is not even my writing they are rejecting. It is only one sample of my writing that is being rejected by one editor. Keep it in perspective.

Sometimes a rejection notice will give feedback as to why the piece was rejected. Maybe they will tell you that you are too fond of “telling” rather than “showing, or that they didn’t believe one character’s motivation, or that the pace is too slow. They will generally not say, “your story sucked,” even if they thought it did. But most rejections are generic form letters along the lines of “thank you very much for your submission to (X). We regret that it doesn’t meet our needs at this time . . .“ It is nice and polite, and completely mechanical.

There are worse things than getting a rejection letter. Imagine how it would be to carefully craft your manuscript, send it in to an agent or a publisher . . .  and get no response. Yes, this happens too. You wait and you wait and you wait. At some point you realize that they couldn’t even be bothered to send you an email that says, “no thanks.” I understand that some places receive tons of submissions and they may not have the staff to deal with it all, but it still stings. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if they at least told you up front in the submission materials that they don’t send rejections out and if you haven’t heard anything by X number of weeks, you can assume your story was not accepted. Some don’t do this. They just leave you in limbo. This is a rather rude way of rejecting someone.

Getting rejections (no matter how polite they are) can be very disheartening to an aspiring writer. Some writers quit trying after a few rejections. Others last longer but eventually quit after they reach their own self-imposed rejection limit. Still others just keep trying until they either get an acceptance letter or are called to that great writing workshop in the sky. Another thing rejection does is it prepares you for how you are going to handle disappointments. No one, no matter what your profession, is immune from disappointment. What happens if you are suddenly successful, get published and your story does really well? The more successful you are, the more haters you will find. It is the nature of art that any work of art will produce a variety of reactions. Some people will love it. Some will be “meh” about it, and some people will hate it. The difference between being rejected by a publisher and being rejected by an audience is that the audience members (especially in today’s world of social media) will have no qualms about telling you, “your story sucked.” Some would-be writers might say, “if I become a rich and famous writer, who cares?” I have two things to say in response to this. First, if you are hoping that your writing will make you rich and famous, you are in the wrong field. There are other, less masochistic ways of becoming rich and famous. Second, you will care if people are trashing your work.

Being rejected teaches patience, perseverance, and thickens your skin. When you finally get that acceptance letter, it will be all the sweeter for having survived the volleys of rejections.  

 

(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).     

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