Rejection Therapy
Join me in my goal to get 100 rejections this year
Rejections hurt.
Judy Blume cried when her first ones rolled in. Someone advised J.K. Rowling to keep her day job. Maya Angelou, despite her legendary career as a dancer, actress and writer, faced twenty rebuffs for every accomplishment.
Why write these stories if no one’s actually going to publish them? What’s the point?
As a journalist, editors have passed on stories and that was fine. I wasn’t prepared for the devastation I felt after my first manuscript won an award, but then was turned down by agent after agent. The worst part was when they simply didn’t answer. The sting was personal.
“It discouraged me from sending my work out,” Shelby Hinte admitted.
I’m at that point now with my second manuscript. My inner voice telling me my book isn’t good enough is as hard to live with as those editors’ form letters.
“This sounds like a compelling read, though I’m sorry to say not a fit for me at the moment.”
Though we know intellectually that we shouldn’t, most writers treat rebuffs as a verdict on their worth. Kim Liao describes the writer’s brain as tuned to KFKD, Anne Lamott’s imaginary radio station where one ear pumps in arrogant delusions while the other broadcasts only doubts and self-loathing. “My vulnerable ego only wants to be loved and accepted, to have my words ring out from a loudspeaker in Times Square, but it’s a big old coward.”
We sit on finished pieces for months, even years, convinced they’re not ready.
“Don’t self-reject. You know what I mean.” - Kelly Link
It is true that if you don’t submit your work, you can’t be rejected. But then, you also can’t be published.
In 2017, Hinte joined a San Francisco writing group with a counterintuitive goal: earn 100 rejections in a year. They kept a leaderboard tracking who got rejected the most. Members forwarded every spurn to the group. Each time, they received back congratulations for having the guts to stick their necks out. It’s better to have tried, and failed, than never to have tried at all. The pain doesn’t feel as lonely when it is shared.
By year’s end, every member had racked up more passes than most writers dare to admit. And yet: every single one had at least one publication, award or reading to show for it.
To reach 100 rejections in 365 days, writers have to be constantly vigilant. You must finish pieces, revise them and submit them into the world before your ego can talk you out of it. One of my writing teachers recommends keeping a spreadsheet to track where you send each of your four or five polished pieces, rotating them among different outlets. At the Geneva Writers Conference, one speaker noted that, with the help of QueryTracker, some authors have been known to submit to more than 200 agents in one year.
Liao, who is a reader for Black Lawrence Press, has learned that many submissions need revision. “Sometimes I feel like each crop of manuscripts is my post-graduate education in how not to start a novel, short story, or essay collection,” she wrote.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better” - Samuel Beckett
What we do with the failures matters. The writers who learn from the experience and keep writing, revising and honing their skills are the ones who will eventually get an acceptance letter.
Liao’s own writing was rejected 43 times in a year.
She also got five acceptances in that same time frame.
Meanwhile, the manuscripts Liao accepted gave her an intoxicating thrill of reading something great. That, she said, is “the reason we all read; it’s the reason many of us write.”
In her 2011 NPR interview with Neal Conan, Blume crystallized the writer’s compulsion: “Nobody writes unless they have to. So if you have to write because it’s inside you, then you will.”
To Maya Angelou, a rejection “can simply mean redirection.”
In the end, refuse to let self-doubt silence you. After nearly two years (!) of rejections, I found a small UK press that took a chance on me. In this publishing environment, I’m under no illusions that this time will be different. Last week that hurt was debilitating. This week I made a goal to receive 100 rejections.
So all of you today: Submit that flash fiction. Query that agent. Apply for that residency. Throw caution to the wind and your short story to Submittable.
And somewhere in those 100 No Thank Yous, you’ll find one Yes.
Sources:
https://lithub.com/why-you-should-aim-for-100-rejections-a-year/
https://lithub.com/20-famous-writers-on-being-rejected/
https://writers.com/dealing-with-rejection-as-a-writer
https://writeordiemag.com/essays/why-we-should-aim-for-rejection-in-2020
Great post, Alison, and thank you for the link!
While I don't write I can join you in the feeling of rejection. It does sting. And for me, makes me start thinking "why am I not worthy?" But we are...somewhere, and the work does matter...to us and to a few that are privy to our work. Keep marching forward!