Learning from the Stuff that Hurts

Today I want to talk about rejection.

The bad news is that rejection comes in all forms, in all parts of life.

When you’re in first grade, and you’re the only kid in the class that Susie (who you thought was your best friend!) doesn’t invite to her party.

When you’re ten, and your older brother won’t let you play street hockey with him and his friends.

Rejection feels like this sometimes.

When you’re a teen, and that guy or girl you like doesn’t know you exist, or worse, they DO know you exist and they scorn your interest.

When you’re in college, and your classmate gives you only dismissive comments during the “peer review” of a short story that you slaved over, and you are struck with how subjective this writing business can be sometimes.

THEN you grow up and decide to be a writer. Rejection, that’s just kids’ stuff, right? You grow up and start being accepted, right?

Unfortunately, no. The minefield of rejection just gets bigger and wider as a writer, no matter what path to publication you choose.

If you decide to go traditional, there are crit groups and betas and then queries and agents and maybe, if you’re really lucky/talented/persistent or maybe all three, editors and then eventually readers and reviewers and other authors. And a lot of these people are going to reject your work, and it will probably feel like they’re rejecting you.

Some of them will do it for professional, no-hard-feelings reasons. Some of them will do it graciously. Some of them will do it without thinking. Some of them will do it for callused or stupid or totally subjective reasons.

Rejection feels like this sometimes.

Now let’s say you go indie. In some ways you think the rejection might not be as bad (no queries, right?) and in some ways, you slowly (and with a sinking heart) realize, it might be worse.

Other writers might turn up their nose at your choices or think you’re lesser because you don’t have a lucrative book deal or a Big Six publisher or heck, a publisher at all. 

Book bloggers might refuse to work with you because self published books are too unreliable or they don’t want to be a “slushpile reader,” and some family or friends might not be quite able to hide the disappointed expression that flits across their face when you explain that your book didn’t find a publisher—you decided to grab life by the horns and publish it yourself. You might feel the sting of these slights and prejudices keenly. 

And then there will be your readers and reviewers and peers. Your critics and commentators and everyone who is watching you and judging your success by your Amazon rank or your Twitter following.

It’s gonna be rejection city, my friend.

But don’t give up. Please don’t give up. The good news … is there good news?

I really hope so!

First, not all rejection is personal. Not everybody will like your stuff—and that’s okay. Human beings are wonderfully varied and different. Some people love Twilight and some people love Flannery O’Connor, and some people love both Twilight and Flannery O’Connor.   

Some people will adore your work and gush about it to all their friends. And some people won’t give a crap about the books that you bathed with your blood, sweat, and tears. Or worse, they may be purposely malicious and mean about how they didn't like it—and that attitude may baffle you, it may hurt you, it may wound you deeply.

Not everyone will do this.

But learn to let it go, because there’s something you’ve got to understand. Everybody is different. That’s the way human beings are. There is a kaleidoscope of interests, tastes, and yearnings out there. There’s an incredible scope of perspectives, desires, and preferences.We need to respect that fact that some people love what other people hate.

Now, not everybody will be gracious about these differences of opinion. Some people will probably spew their disdain for your type of work all over the internet, for instance, by making blogs that mock your genre or rip the work of certain authors to shreds like sharks at a chum-fest (yep, seen it!) or writing a blog post about how book covers like yours are childish, embarrassing, or vapid (yep, seen it!) or claiming that your style of book is ruining society/publishing/young minds (yep ... seen it).

But you can be gracious, and if you are, that’s one less person being hateful.

And I think that’s something to strive for, don’t you?

Second, I believe that all the rejection is making me/you/us stronger. Every cut hurts, but we heal. When a stranger, a peer, or even a friend wounds you, take some time to process it. You will probably cry, or rage, or swear at your laptop. (I suggest shoveling mulch, actually.) You might take a walk or eat pancakes smothered in syrup and whipped cream. 

You will feel a tiny bit better. And then … 

Let it go. Please, let it go. Because there’s so much to do and be in this world, and if you hold onto the hurt and let it smolder inside you like a festering sore then you aren’t going to heal.

And finally, the good news …

The good news is, when you learn to accept the rejection and let it go and heal when it hurts, you’re going to get stronger. And better. And maybe even more gracious, because you’ve learned how much it hurts to be the recipient of a thoughtless fellow writer or a dismissive crit group or someone who has no time for a struggling peer or a reviewer who could only cared to list, in gory detail, every single thing he or she thought was ridiculous, absurd, and wrong with your precious book, complete with insults to your intelligence as the author.

So maybe you won’t be that person, because you know what it’s like. Maybe I won't do it either.

 

Now, I'm very sensitive, so maybe I get hit a bit harder by this than some. But I feel like lately the abuse has just been piling on. I wish I could forget a lot of the things spoken to my face over just the PAST MONTH (“I know you fancy yourself a writer, but…” from a friend, no less, “Fantasy books are going to be the death of literature” from another writer who writes literary fiction... 

And there were more instances than those.

Rejection and other hurtful occurrences are unavoidable.

But not everybody does it on purpose, or to be mean, or to be cruel.  But even when people are cruel on purpose … it’s an important lesson.

I can't stop everyone from being critical or cruel or thoughtless.

So I really hope I can learn from it.

Rejection Feels Like . . .

So yesterday I got a rejection that really, really sucked.

I'd written this short story that I had really high hopes for, one I thought was actually quite good. I definitely don't think that about most of my short stories, but this one was my very favorite and I felt pretty confident about it. I send it to a sort of prestigious magazine (that would totally score me membership points for SFWA) and I got a response from one of the editors saying she loved it and that it was getting passed on to the second level of consideration for the next issue. I was very excited, and I waited several weeks for a response, my anticipation getting higher with each day that went by without a response (they say not hearing back is a good thing when it's a fast turn-around market like this one was, because you're being seriously considered the longer you wait ).

Then yesterday I got some really upsetting news by the way of family. Not a death or illness or anything like that, but definitely something huge and something that I think is pretty awful. I was very upset about it. I went home and logged onto my email to tell my brother about it since I doubted he'd heard yet, and waiting for me was an email about the short story.

I clicked on it, and a tiny bit of hope fluttered inside me, but (I swear, sometimes I think I'm psychic) I really knew already somehow. And yeah, it was a rejection. A form rejection, no less, which is always tough after a very nice, very personal note from an editor from the same magazine.

So it sort of sucked. I think it felt like, to borrow an analogy from this, that I was opening a box on Christmas morning and I thought it was something I'd been hoping and dreaming for, and instead my pet hamster was inside. Dead.

NOW. I'm not trying to whine about this. Am I sounding whiny? I know agents often go off about whiny authors on their blogs, and believe me, I get that rejection is part of the business. I totally get that, and to be honest it has gotten a lot easier for me too. I didn't cry. I sort of shrugged my shoulders and moved on. The family thing was definitely bringing me down much more than the rejection. But combined they were sort of a rough set of disappointments, you know?

Instead of whining, I'm trying to sort of cheer myself up. Sometimes I have a darker sense of humor. So tell me. What does rejection feel like to you? Be colorful.

I say rejection feels like getting sat on by an elephant. While you're also on fire. On your birthday. Oh, and he totally squashed your ice cream cone with his foot, too.

See? I feel better already!

Rejection (or in other words): Why Every Writer Needs a Cat

This is not the face of compassion

I have a cat. Her name is Sansa.

She is not always the kindest animal in the world.

Now, dear readers, I probably don't have to tell you that the world out there is not a nice one. Agents, editors, readers, heck, even fellow writers can and probably will crush your dreams a couple of times on the road to publication and beyond. . . basically, you're going to have to deal with rejection.

Cats know all about rejection. Cats are little purring machines of malicious spite. They thrive on it. In fact, the word for "cat" in Farsi means "cruel unfeeling beast."

Okay, I made up that last bit.

But anyway, rejection. As a writer, you'll get it. As a cat owner, you'll get it. See where I'm going with this?

To illustrate, I give you:

CONVERSATIONS WITH MY CAT
An essay in picture form

It's important to learn to deal with rejection.

BUT

Sometimes I think maybe I need a dog.