(First published on my old blog 8th July 2013)
Nobody like rejection. At least I have never encountered anyone who does. It would have to be a fairly rare fetish if it does exist independently of other factors. Writers, like brave souls returning to or continuing playing the dating game, probably make it fairly high in the list of those who like rejection least.
In fact the more experience I gain in writing and submitting my work, the more I think it has in common with dating. There is a code to dating, often subtle, rarely understood in exactly the same way by both parties, but a code nonetheless. I have never tried internet dating; as I am quite happy where I am in that regard hopefully I will never need to. But I have to say I feel for the brave souls who hang their hearts out on a yard arm in the hope of being found acceptable, or even being desired. Of course this is gross over simplification. I’m sure there are a hundred and one other reasons for internet dating, or any other kind of date for that matter, than just the hope of finding someone who fits.
The comparison is there to make however. We writers send our words out, basically into outer space; certainly into cyber space; in the hope that someone – an editor, a publisher, an agent, a reader – will chose us. That we will have found our audience; the place where we fit. There are many more writers than there are agents or publishers. It stands to reason for a consumer driven enterprise.
So of course there are far, far more rejections being sent than acceptances.
I’ve had some experience of this myself recently. I’ll be honest, however prepared you think you are, those first rejections sting like vinegar in an anal fistula. This isn’t surprising. Like the internet daters, aren’t we writer also hanging our hearts and souls out on a yard arm? Exposing our soft under bellies? I maintain that it is all but impossible to write something really good without writing honestly. I don’t mean writing in a way that happens to hit the market at the right time and sell loads of copies; that’s luck and no amount of statistics in those cases will ever make the book good. Which isn’t to say that writing cannot be brilliant and best selling. Of course it can. I digress. And I have no intention of pointing fingers at bestselling but inferior work here!
In my case rejection and acceptance came backwards. In a swelter of blind and slightly manic panic, I sent out a bunch of short stories to various magazines and publishers. It was a reaction to my deep conviction that nothing I wrote was ever going to be good enough. I was developing a mental block about sending out my work. So I tried implosion therapy.
To cut a long story short my initial responses were three acceptances and two probablys. To date I have had another acceptance and I have four pieces under consideration. This was all somewhat of a shock. Where were the rejection slips? The form letters I had been led to believe I would receive for years before getting so much as a matrimonial nibble from a publisher wanting to wed my MS. Well after this I received my first ever rejection letter. On the same day in the next piece of post in fact, I received my second rejection letter. It was still back to front though. These were personalised letters addressed to me, telling me how much the editor had enjoyed my story but that it wasn’t a good fit/ didn’t match the overall mood/ wasn’t quite right. There were generous especially considering it is easy to fire off a form letter but takes time and energy to leave even two lines of feedback. To top it off these letter requested that I submit more of my work in future.
In rejection code terms ye it did mean that those stories weren’t being published. It did not however mean it was because they weren’t good. I was either pipped to the post by a stronger story or mine wasn’t a good fit for the overall theme. Alright, I thought at the time, I can handle that sort of rejection.
So when once again on the same day, two non personal ‘form’ letters arrived … well I won’t say I was crushed because I have a fairly tough hide, but I can’t honestly say it didn’t hurt. It did. It will do if it happens again which it likely will. Rejection is an occupational hazard for writers and daters alike. It may be that these form rejections came because I did not send the right piece to the right publisher. It may be that they just weren’t strong enough to be published. All reasonable and plausible in terms of why they were rejected. However in rejection code a form letter tends to mean ‘rubbish, why did you send us this crap.’ Of course it’s probably more complicated than that but I can assure you if you haven’t received one yet, if and when you do receive a form rejection it will shake your confidence. Maybe it should. Maybe that’s what produces really good writers. The piece of you that you sent out has been firmly stepped on but you scrape yourself back together and try again. And again. And again.
At one point I actually wondered if my earlier success hadn’t had more to do with luck or worse maybe it wasn’t the beginning of success, maybe it was success – my allotted portion from which everything else was set on a downward gradient. Obviously this is rubbish. But expect to question yourself. I did. I would be very surprised if there was any writer in the same position who didn’t.
Then there are the ones that seem to be IT. The fit. The one. On paper all is good. Like the dater with half a dozen good dates under his/her belt you’ve heard from a publisher saying they’re very interested in the piece you sent them but they need to run it past the final panel. It sounds like a cake walk. You tell yourself not to get your hopes up but you feel confident. You can’t help it. Like the dater who has had six good dates you relax…and they never call. Or they write you a lovely, polite letter with feedback explaining that you jut weren’t a good fit for the overall theme.
*sigh*
In some ways this almost hurts worse than a form rejection. With a form rejection you can tell yourself that ‘they didn’t get you’ or ‘didn’t read it properly / at all’. With this – they read it carefully, in detail, several times. And rejected you anyway. What is this code for? Well absolutely nothing more than they said. You didn’t fit this time. It was good enough to publish but in the end they didn’t want a seventh date. In a way that’s good. If they were thinking about publishing it then the standard is up there. You just need to find someone who does want it. You can re-submit with confidence. Of course it took me a day of working the words of the letter over in my head, testing for deception before I came to that conclusion.
It was actually a really nice, encouraging letter. Or I can see that now I’m not hurt and annoyed! The publishers in question did indeed cite ‘it just doesn’t fit the overall mood of this anthology’ as their reason having had the piece to mull over for eight weeks. They also said that they ‘strongly recommended that I submit to them again. They loved my fresh, individual voice.’ They had several projects opening throughout the year and it was possible that the piece they had rejected this time would fit in with one of those better.
Looking at this logically this is not only an invitation to submit work but an invitation to submit the same piece of work. There really was nothing wrong with it other than it not fitting the mood. Ok so in dating terms that’s publisherize for ‘I still have feeling for my ex that I need to work through but I really like you. If you’re still free I’ll look you up.’ Which sucks. But it is also the best rejection letter I’ve received to date.
So if you’re fuming/ crying/ stamping around over a rejection letter I suggest putting it to one side and coming back to look at it with a bit more perspective later when you’ve calmed down. It may well turn out that you’ve misread the rejection code. And even if you haven’t you had the guts to put yourself out there. You know you can do it so onward and upward. Send it out again.