Rejection Reaction:What's Your Style?

If you've chosen the writing life, rejection of some form or another is, unfortunately, part of the package. Not every idea will be the right one, submitted in the right time to the right person. Some of your submissions, you'll realize later, were really stinkers; some of them were simply seeds that fell on fallow soil, with not a thing you could've done about it.

But striking out is all part of the game, as unavoidable as death, taxes, and the occasional reviewer who seemingly hates you down to your mitochondrial DNA. How you react to rejection, in my opinion, is one of the handful of factors that determines whether or not you have what it takes to keep your writer's spirit intact and keep producing.

Possible reactions to rejection:

1. Whining, self-pity, and self loathing: A little of this is allowed. So call a writing buddy and weep at the unfairness of it all if you must, but allow it to take root and you'll lose days, weeks, months--possibly a lifetime--to depression. Your dream can and will die if you give in to this. Or you'll feel so hurt, you will never again be able to risk so much pain by actually submitting. I've seen plenty of good writers, sensitive spirits all, give up because they couldn't take the heat.

2. Anger and/or self-delusion: Telling yourself that only the connected, "beautiful" people make it, that the editors and agents are all morons, and that New York's only looking for soulless drivel can make you bitter, cynical, and unwilling to accept responsibility to adapt and change as you must to be successful. These writers often repeat the same mistake over and over, only to blame the rest of the world for refusing to evolve in their direction. They also aren't especially pleasant to be around.

3. Over-correction: Some writers over-analyze every rejection and earnestly attempt to do everything they can to "fix" their manuscript in accordance to the "holy edict" of those in the know. The trouble is, if you send out the same submission to ten agents, editors, or even critique partners, unless the stars align and you end up involved in a giant bidding war, you will very likely get ten different, completely conflicting comments on the trouble with it. If you're wishy-washy and always bowing to everyone else's tastes and opinions (rather than either a major consensus or those that resonate with your vision) you will never evolve the authoritative faith in yourself, your own expertise as a reader/writer, and your work that it takes to serve as your internal guide.

4. Dogged Determination: This is the writer who digs in her heels and snarls, "I'll effing show them!" (your saltiness quotient may vary.) This author tries to figure out what's gone wrong or improve her craft in some way, alters her course either slightly or radically, and then as quickly as possible fires another salvo into the submission wars. This is the writer who's too mule-headed to succumb to self-doubt and too stubborn to give anyone else the satisfaction.

This is also very often the author who has what it takes to make it for the long haul.

If I'm being honest with myself (and nothing else pays), I'd say I've faced rejection with all four of these possible reactions. I've at time felt hurt, depressed, angry, and horribly uncertain of my skills. But I've never for a moment felt uncertain of my need to write or my own vision, and I can't remember ever sending out one submission without immediately moving onto a new project. Having some hot-'n-heavy new affair (writing-wise, anyway) going by the time any possible rejections come my way on the preceding project inoculates me so that my tours through reactions 1, 2, and 3 can be brief as possible (or entirely absent, if I'm lucky) and makes reaction #4 my default setting.

So what's your default reaction to rejection? How do you pick yourself up and keep on moving forward?

When Rejection's a Favor

I know what it is to beat one's head against the brick wall of rejection, to turn every stone, cross every T, and [insert additional motheaten cliche here].

I remember well the intense frustration of "almost," when you feel yourself teetering on the verge of publication. When time after time, at that final moment, the prize is snatched from your grasp. When, looking around you, you see others, perhaps those who haven't worked so long or hard or don't seem to have much in the way of talent, achieve what you've worked for so diligently.

Stinks, doesn't it? But the truth is, in a lot of cases, you may look back to discover that rejection was a favor. Either you weren't ready or the writing wasn't. The project offered was one that couldn't possibly commercially succeed or would end up in a niche so narrow, your career as a published author would be brief, stunted, and steeped in bitterness. From the vantage of perspective, the seasoned author will recognize what experienced agents and editors first noticed - and what the novice lacked the objectivity and marketing-savvy to see.

Some manuscripts simply should never be published, and as heartbreaking as that fact is, it doesn't mean they should not have been written. Because with every story completed, the dedicated writer grows in skill until, when her "market sense" evolves to the right degree and the right idea comes up, she'll be ready for it.

More than likely, this will never happen if the writer stubbornly clings to ideas such as "these agents know nothing," "only people with connections can get published," or "if they don't know good art when they see it, I'll publish this myself. And show them!"

I submit to you that if you're winning or placing in contests or getting a lot of bites (including full reads) on your work by industry professionals, you most likely have the talent needed to become a published author. What you may not have is the right idea, the most polished, commercially viable product, or the right timing to make you stand out in an incredibly competitive field.

So my question is, are you going to be one of those who gives up, allowing your dream to fall by the wayside? Are you going to try to second guess the market with a short-cut, such as a vanity press (in all its insidious and tempting guises)? Or will you be among the few who put in the years, study, and sweat equity needed to pursue a quest that offers no one guarantees?

Are you going to be among those who looks back with relief on your early rejections and feels grateful that those developmental manuscripts weren't included in your body of work?

Question for the day: Do you have an "under-the-bed" manuscript you're now glad wasn't published? What did you learn from the experience of writing and submitting it?

Sometimes you just need to rock it out

Most of the time, I feel pretty good about the publishing industry. The rest of the time...there's Frank Zappa.

Nice to know we're not alone, n'set pas?

Don't get derailed by Dingus Magee

A while back I read William Goldman's terrific Adventures in the Screen Trade, which is so packed with great writing advice, I had to make a list of things to blog about down the road. One particular passage came back to me when a recent proposal of mine was shot down. Discussing the process and production surrounding his script Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Goldman says that when it came time to market the screenplay, it was a "hot item" with interest from several studios, but it was rejected by MGM. Goldman says:

A Metro executive told me that the reason they didn't bid was this: "We've already got our joke western, The Ballad of Dingus Magee."

The fact is this: If Butch went out today, just as it did originally, a simple unencumbered screenplay available for purchase, it would never have sold.

I laughed out loud when I read this. The only time I'd ever heard of Dingus Magee was in an episode of MST3K. Meanwhile, Butch and Sundance went on to become a classic, and Goldman won an Oscar for the screenplay.

There's two things we can take from this. First, there's the eye-roll response to rejection. If they don't get it, they just don't get it. There's nothing you can do to change their mind. Second, Goldman makes the point that to everything there is a season. Timing is everything in the placement of a manuscript. A writer's only response in either case is to write what you want to write. It's a terrible mistake for an author to internalize rejection, change course, or abandon an idea simply because the market for it isn't (at this moment) ripe for it. Or because somebody just doesn't get it.

A universal truth in the writing life: rejection happens. So they sent you a thanks but no thanks. Let them have their Dingus Magee. You know who you are as an artist and what you're doing as a writer. To thine own self be true. Your time will come.

The R Word

From the greenest beginner, to the most-published novelists, nobody likes rejections. But if you're in the game, they're bound to happen. As you learn the market and develop your craft, you can reduce but never completely eliminate them.

Rejection can mean anything from "you're kidding, right?" (loads of form rejections with no personal notes may mean you're pretty far off the mark), to "you can write, but you clearly haven't done your homework on our needs" to "oh, this is cool, but I don't know how to make enough filthy lucre on it to buy" to "this project's right, but the timing's wrong." Or they can mean nothing but the editor or agent involved was in a huge hurry to clean off her desk before vacation. Only rarely will they contain nuggets that will help you figure out how to make the project saleable. Honest, experienced critique partners, contest judges, and book doctors (sometimes, on all three) are more likely to provide those answers, but more often than not, you'll have to develop that intuition on your own.

You have to get over the idea that your writing project is your baby or a sliver of your psyche. You have to get past feeling so fragile that you let strangers tell you how you feel about your work... and even worse, yourself. I know talented writers who've never gotten anyplace because they couldn't develop a thick enough skin. Instead, they felt the pain of the rejections and stopped dead, afraid to risk such hurt again.

The writers who make it feel the pain, too, and all of them I've ever known experience moments (hours!) of self-doubt. But on the surface, they get tough as an old gator and keep charging the same door, not always from the same angle, but they ram their heads against it until they hear it splinter.

And when they succeed, that thick hide serves them well, because if you think it's tough getting rejections via mail or e-mail, wait until you have to deal with reviewers posting their ever-so-snarky "rejections" on the Internet or splashing them across the pages of Kirkus or PW. So think of your early rejections as tough love, preparing you for a tough business. Because that's what writing books is, make no mistake on that count.

For an excellent take on rejection, check out this post from author Karen McCullough guest blogging at Marilu Mann's Escape into the Fantasy. It's well worth reading and chock full of advice I wish I'd had when I was getting started.

Close, But No... You Know

If it's disheartening for a writer to be so far off the mark that she's only scoring form rejections (which have happened to the best of us), there's a particular heartbreak in coming oh-so-very-close that you can taste it and then falling just a smidge short of making the damned sale. It's the coitus interruptus
of the writing life: exciting but oh-so-unsatisfactory.

You'll know it when you get there. It's an enthusiastic call or e-mail from your agent that some editor's oh-so-excited about your book/proposal. She's either finishing it this week (which often drags on in the manner of a doctor's waiting room-minute) or "taking it to committee." There's a long delay, during which -- since you're a writer -- you begin imagining success in vivid detail: what you'll tell your Doubting-Thomasina/Snidely Smartass Sister-in-Law, where you're get your significant other to take you for a romantic celebration (click on the "coitus interruptus" link above for the how-not-to-celebrate example), what saucy little designer number you'll wear to the Insert-Prestigious-Awards-Ceremony-of-Your-Choice. Because you're so excited and it's dragging on so long, you start telling the sort of people who will be genuinely happy and excited for you. And maybe just a few who will be jealous but deserve it.

And then, something happens. You almost always get the crushing news by e-mail because your agent (or whoever) doesn't want the embarrassment of dealing with your breakdown on the phone. Plus, maybe the agent's just a little bit embarrassed about letting his/her own premature verbal ejaculation (my, this post is getting risque) get your hopes up.

Owwwwwch. It hurts. Hurts like childbirth or an abscessed tooth or an IRS audit without anesthesia. And it requires some grieving time, perhaps a good, old-fashioned wallow in self-pity.

For maybe an hour or two. And then it's time to realize that getting that close means you ARE close, so close to your dream that it would be a crime to quit now. When a publishing professional expresses strong interest in your work, that almost always means it IS publishable. Maybe the scales didn't tip your way because the house didn't have a good track record with your type of fiction or there wasn't an open slot on the schedule for three years or one of the more senior editors just signed another author who fills a similar market niche or the editor with the say-so is allergic to cats and your book has one or... There are a million reasons you can come close without getting the cigar.

But if you quit now, you never will achieve it. And that would be the greatest loss of all.

P.S.- Besides, now you have someone (besides your snooty sister-in-law) to "show" when you achieve world-domination.