HOW WRITERS CAN REJECT REJECTION
Katherine Anne Porter has said that "One of the marks of having a gift is the courage to use it."
If I have learned one thing in my forty-three years of being an editor--and seven years of giving lectures and workshops at writers conferences around the country--it is that rejection is something most writers have to face--but few know how to face up to.
This knowledge was dramatically proven yet again last year when I moderated a panel entitled REJECTING REJECTION at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference. The panel was composed of editors, agents and authors and it was the most heavily attended of any of the many workshops offered at the conference. The largest meeting room was packed. Before asking for questions from the floor, each panel member spoke for five minutes on how writers could persist in their art and craft despite repeated rejection.
I opened the panel with the following comments:
Isaac Asimov, in his book How To Enjoy Writing wrote : 'Most writers kick and scream and there isn't any reason why you shouldn't, either, if it makes you feel better. However, once you are quite done with the kicking and screaming, sit down and re-read the manuscript in the light of anything the editor may have told you and see if you can find out what's wrong and how to correct what's wrong in the future. If the rejection teaches you something, you may in the long run have gained more from it than from a too-easy acceptance of a flawed story.
"Don't stay mad and decide you are the victim of incompetence and stupidity. If you do, you'll learn nothing and you'll never become a writer.
"Don't get huffy because you have already made sales and therefore feel that no editor dare reject you. That's just not so. He can reject you and he need not even offer any reason. I've made nearly two thousand sales of all kinds, and I still get rejections now and then, and some pretty off-handed ones at times, too.
"Don't make the opposite mistake and decide the story is worthless. Editors differ and so do tastes and so does a publisher's needs. Try the story or novel or nonfiction work somewhere else....What doesn't fit one editor's list might easily fit another's."
Suzanne Lipsett offers this inspiring thought in her invaluable book Surviving A Writer's Life:
"J.D. Salinger's famous line 'it's not over till the fat lady sings,' never held any mystery for me. Writer to writer, Salinger was planting a seed of crazy belief at the turn of the sixties that has since spread into an impenetrable thicket of faith: as long as those little black marks are marching across white pages, somewhere--in a drawer, in a trunk, in an attic---the possibility remains that they will ultimately find their audience. You can slip paper clips under the nails of the hundreds of thousands of aspiring writers, wannaabe writers, grimly determined, journeyman writers, and writers attempting to match or exceed an early success, and you'll never wipe out that faith. It's as tough in the face of punishment as religious fervor."
Dealing with rejection, then, means, among other things, understanding and coping with the subjective tastes and needs of a variety of different editors, keeping up one's courage, living with the ravages of rage, the chaos of creativity, and the necessity of perseverance in the face of bouts of insidious depression and elusive hopes.
The novelist Barbara Kingsolver's optimistic credo gives heart to authors everywhere who "write on" despite rejection after rejection:
"This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it to 'the editor who can appreciate my work' And it has simply come back stamped 'Not at this address."
You will find the right address. But to do so, you must keep on writing!
After the other members of the panel spoke, I planned to take questions from the floor for fifteen minutes. Three quarters of an hour later I had to close the panel but members of the audience still wanted to give their personal prescriptions for coping with rejection, and asking questions about how other writers handled the problem. It was the one topic at the conference that every kind of writer empathized with. They were all hungry for help that would sustain them during their darkest hours of self doubt, and happy to share with others what worked for them. Their passionate involvement and obvious need made it clear to me that a book that offered them techniques of courage and the means to continue to dedicate themselves to their careers in the face of rejection would be eagerly welcomed by them.
Next week, my agent will offer my proposal for a book I want to edit entitled "DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB" : A TREASURY OF INSPIRATION AND WISDOM FOR WRITERS ON HOW TO REJECT REJECTION to trade publishing editors. The book will contain the most practical advice and inspiration available from agents, editors, authors and publishers on how to triumph over rejection until publishing success arrives---or returns (for even published writers risk rejection on their next work!). It will be resolutely upbeat and contain success stories of writers who finally achieved publication after suffering many rejections.
Once the project is sold to an editor, I plan to ask readers of this page to contribute their personal advice, inspiration and wisdom to 'DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB"
So keep your eye on this page in the weeks and months to come.
