Rejection lessons

Today's Mood: Pensive (light blue) Today's Music: Sarah MacLachlan. Today's writing: IFFY. Today's Quote:

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one. -Salman Rushdie

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All writers have to deal with rejection. The more I have read and learned about writing, the more I have learned that to be a writer means you will have to deal with rejection. What I am still struggling to figure out, is how to deal with it.

The first rejection I got after sending out Black Dragon was like a stone thrown directly at my head. My manuscript wasn't any good. In fact, it was pure shit. Why, I wasn't any good either. Not a good writer. Not an interesting enough person to write anything interesting. The loop in my head was entirely personal and negative. I didn't write for a week.

But after several more rejections (which goes to show you there is something to the exposure to violence/rejection leading to a certain numbness theory), I developed a tougher skin. The editor/agent didn't like my work, but he/she was only one opinion. My work could be tighter, more polished, but it wasn't total shit. Still a negative loop, but not quite so personal. I didn't write for a day.

After many more rejections (and this is including the "good" (now there is an oxymoron for you!) rejections), the loop in my head sounds more like: My manuscript hasn't reached the right person yet. Where should I send it next? I struggled to get up with my alarm this morning, but it might have been due to staying up too late reading last night.

But I can't stop the disappointment. I mean, I knew that worrying about 2 publishers both wanting the piece at once was a dim almost impossible thing. Yet my mind went there. And seeing in black and white that one of them doesn't want it, still fills my stomach with a heavy disappointment. It was only through talking with my wonderful writing friends that I can manage to avoid the "maybe I'm just not that good a writer," loop.

So should we manage to crush that voice that whispers the "maybes"? Should we just drop the dream of getting published and say, oh well, it doesn't matter if I ever get published?

I don't think so. If I didn't care whether I was published or not, I probably wouldn't spend the time or money trying to get published. So, I have to care, but not make publishing the cornerstone of my writing. I need to write because I love to write. I need to dream about publishing in order to get the guts to keep submitting.

And I really, really need to listen. To my heart. To my writing friends when they tell me my writing is working. To the publisher/agent when she/he says it is good, just not what they are looking for. And most of all, I need to keep writing.

Form Rejections

Mood: plodding. Music: Tori Amos--Beekeeper. Writing: nothing today. Today's Quotes: "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."  ~English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University. "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."  ~Author Unknown, commonly misattributed to Samuel Johnson

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So okay, given those quotes, maybe form rejections aren't all bad. In fact, the first one I received made me feel pretty good because it was addressed: Dear Author. They called me an author! Pretty heady stuff. But after 6 or 7 of those letters, it no longer has the same effect. When a publishing company responded to my query letter by requesting my manuscript, a big part of me was pretty sure I'd still get rejected. But there was that small part. The part called hope that dies hard. So it wasn't that I didn't expect rejection--it was that it was a form letter that told me nothing--taught me nothing. I'm a teacher, and so I'm always looking for that teachable moment. I have to continually remind myself that editors and publishing companies are not in the teaching business. It's poor comfort.

The biggest comfort came from friends who are writers--who have been there, done that. Just having another writer (a more experienced writer) say, "Form rejections suck," helped me feel better. I'm not the only one who has had to endure this. And it does suck, but there it is. And then I had another writer (published at that) tell me she has heard editors say that if they have no intention of publishing a MS, they don't want to make comments that might be taken by the author for revision. They feel any comments should be left for an editor who is interested in publishing the manuscript. That made me feel better too. At least I can see the logic in it.

Form rejections still suck, but my writing group gave me good suggestions for revisions on my second manuscript, and other writing friends encouraged me to keep writing, to believe, to trust. And even though that's hard for me right now, it's okay, because they are willing to trust and believe for me. And I'll pick it up again soon. After all, Alfred Kazin said (Think, Feb. 1963), "The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax."