Coping with Rejection
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- Date: 10 May 2006 14:58:03 -0700
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Moira Allen is the editor and publisher of Writing-World.com, and the
author of more than 300 articles and columns. She has just released a
new book on writing: How to Write for Magazines; she is also the author
of Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer, The Writer's Guide to
Queries, Pitches and Proposals, and Writing.com: Creative Internet
Strategies to Advance Your Writing Career. Allen is a contributing
editor for The Writer and a frequent contributor to other writing
publications. She has been writing and editing professionally for more
than 25 years, and has also taught freelance and creative writing at
several community colleges. Allen has recently launched a new travel
website, TimeTravel-Britain.com.
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Coping with Rejection
by Moira Allen
Rejection slips. Is there anything worse than those humbling,
preprinted letters, too light to trick you into thinking your SASE
might contain an acceptance, too impersonal to tell you why? Rejection
slips are the writer's gremlin, the nagging suggestion that we don't
measure up. What can we do about them? How can we live with them? How
do we make them stop?
Unfortunately, rejection is part of being a writer. Not just a
beginning writer, either; experienced writers get them as well.
(Admittedly, Stephen King's editor probably adds a nice note... Well,
admittedly, I'm not sure Stephen King ever gets rejected these days,
but on the other hand, where do you suppose he got the inspiration for
all that horror?)
One of the most important steps you can take as a writer is to learn
how to cope with rejection, how to understand what it means to your
career, and how to move on.
Building Boundaries
Writers are sensitive souls. If we weren't, we'd find something else to
do. Unfortunately, that sensitivity also makes us more vulnerable to
rejection.
The first step in handling rejection, therefore, is learning how to
distinguish yourself from your work. You may pour your heart and soul
into your writing, but, in order to survive as a writer, you must also
be able to establish "boundaries" between yourself and your creation.
Your writing may be like a child to you, but like any child, it must go
out into the world to succeed or fail on its own merits. If you can't
develop that sense of boundary, you'll go nuts -- and quite simply
stop. Success will become impossible if you cannot bear the pain of
failure.
But WHY?
You've probably heard that editors who reject your work aren't
rejecting you -- and that's true. However, they may not be rejecting
your work either. Lack of quality is only one reason for rejection.
There are many others. While the standard "Does not meet our editorial
needs at this time" doesn't tell you why a piece was refused, it could
have been for any of the following reasons:
A similar piece is already on file. "Similar" can mean simply relating
to the same topic -- for example, if you submit the perfect article on
Antigua to a travel magazine, and they have another article on Antigua
on hand (even though vastly different from yours), they won't be able
to accept another.
A similar piece has been assigned. Great minds do think alike -- and
you'd be amazed how often two or more writers will query on a similar
topic.
A similar piece (or a piece on the same topic) was published within the
last two or three years. (Many publications won't repeat a topic for
that long.)
It's also possible to write an excellent article that still doesn't
quite mesh with an editor's tastes in terms of style, tone, approach,
angle, viewpoint, or even length. (I once had a piece rejected for
being "too short" -- when I added 300 words, it was accepted.) Again,
this doesn't mean that your article was poor; it means that it came
close but not quite close enough.
That brings me to the final reason for rejection: Sheer volume. If an
editor can accept five articles per month out of a pile of 500, it
isn't only the "bad" articles that are going to be rejected. Perfectly
good articles will also be rejected, simply because the editor can't
buy all of them. Your article may be perfect in every way, yet be sent
back just because it was #6 in the stack of "maybes."
"Good" Rejection Slips
Is there such a thing as a "good" rejection slip? Absolutely. Any
rejection slip that offers actual information is "good" -- because it
helps you understand the reason for the rejection. Some magazines offer
a "checklist" letter, listing many of the potential reasons for
rejection and "checking" the one that applies to you. Finding out that
someone else had already been assigned to the topic is a lot more
comforting than being left to assume that the editor thought your
article stank.
Even better than checklists, however, are rejections that include a
personal note of any kind. Even the barest scribble shows that the
editor thought enough of your piece to respond personally, rather than
scrawling "No" on the outside of the envelope and passing it off to an
assistant. Treasure those scribbles; they mean that you are making a
positive impression.
Still higher on the list of "positive" rejections is the "please try
again" note. When an editor asks you to come back with another
submission, believe it: No editor will ever say this unless s/he means
it. This is often the result of a submission that "just misses"
acceptance for one of the reasons listed above. Quite often, the editor
truly wishes s/he could purchase your piece, but can't -- and doesn't
want to lose the opportunity to grab you as a contributor. Whenever
you're asked to try again, try again!
Self-Honesty
While there may be dozens of reasons why an editor rejected your piece
that have nothing to do with quality, a writer must also be willing to
ask honestly whether, in fact, quality was the issue. When we write, we
often become so involved in a piece -- so close to what we have written
-- that an accurate assessment of quality becomes difficult. Often, our
work isn't as good as we thought it was -- or wasn't what our target
market required.
When I teach writing, I'm amazed by how many students expect to sell
their first piece of writing to Cosmopolitan or Woman's Day. There's
nothing wrong with dreaming "big." There's also nothing wrong with
having to work up to those dreams. Failure isn't a matter of aiming at
Cosmopolitan and missing. Failure is a matter of failing to take the
steps necessary to hit your target -- maybe not today, maybe not this
year, maybe not even next year, but eventually.
Good writing evolves over time. For most of us, it is a skill, not a
gift -- and skills are refined over time. Sure, there are occasional
"prodigies" who craft the perfect bestseller the first time they pick
up a pen -- just as there are "prodigy" musicians who play perfectly
the first time they pick up the violin. For the rest of us, perfection
is achieved by plodding -- and by endless practice that may, for a
time, make everyone around us cover their ears and wince.
The reality of writing is that when you start, you think you're pretty
good. After a year, if you've been writing steadily, you're likely to
look back on those first efforts and wonder what on earth you saw in
them. After you've been writing for five years, you may look at those
first-year masterpieces and wonder why you didn't burn them on the
spot. (This process never ends: As you continue to improve, you'll feel
this way 20 years from now, about the stuff you write 19 years from
now.) To some writers, this scenario sounds depressing -- but what
would be even more depressing is the idea that you can't get better!
Writing is a somewhat schizophrenic process. We must be able to look at
each piece we produce and say, honestly, "This is the best I can do."
At the same time, we must also be able to say -- equally honestly -- "I
can do better." Both statements are true. What you write today is the
best you can do -- today. Tomorrow, quite probably, you'll do better.
But only if you don't stop writing today.
It Sank. Get Over It.
Someone developed a t-shirt with a picture of the Titanic on the front
and, on the back, the words: "It sank. Get over it." The same can be
said of rejection.
It came back. Get over it. Or more to the point, get used to it --
because if you practice your craft, you're going to get a lot of
rejections over time.
"Getting used to" rejection doesn't mean that rejection ever loses its
sting. It doesn't. Nor is that a bad thing: I suspect that the day
rejection ceases to hurt is the day one has lost one's passion for
writing. Pain isn't a bad thing. Pain simply means we care.
At the same time, there are things you can do to ease the sting. The
next time your material comes back with one of those awful slips, try
one of these:
Have a rejection party. "Celebrate" your rejection with a pizza, a dish
of ice cream, a trip to the movies. You have a right to celebrate: You
have to be a writer to be rejected. (It never happens to dreamers.)
Start a rejection slip file. Besides being useful for taxes (it proves
to the IRS that you are attempting to conduct a business), it can come
in handy down the line, when you're famous. Then you'll be able to say,
with a smug flourish, "Well, I was rejected 48 times before my
story/novel/article was accepted by Megabucks Publishing..."
Send your material on to the next publisher on your list.
Write something else. Better yet, start writing something else the
minute your last piece is finished and out the door. Rejection stings
less when your mind is occupied with a newer, and therefore more
interesting, project.
At the beginning of this article, I asked whether anything was worse
than a rejection slip. The answer is "yes." Far worse than a rejection
slip is never having written anything that could have been rejected in
the first place.
For More Information:
"All will be shown for its true worth in time," by Peggy Tibbetts -
http://www.rumorsofwar.net/About_the_Author/Articles/articles.htm#topAA
Words of Wisdom at RejectionsSlips.com -
http://www.rejectionslips.com/wisdom.html
RejectionCollection.com - http://www.rejectioncollection.com/
Interview with Moira Allen -
http://rejectioncollection.com/rcollection/index.php3?story_id=341
Copyright © 2001 Moira Allen
This article originally appeared on Inkspot.
This article is available for reprint at no charge.
Click here for details!
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