Prejection, or What to Expect When You Are Expecting Rejection

Evelyn_Alexie · Aug 17, 2014

I entered into a contest, and tomorrow the finalists are going to be announced. I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for rejection. I’ve been reading through this forum as a way to get prepared. Found some good words of encouragement. Another good place was this blog: http://www.ellenjackson.net/dealing_with_rejection_61476.htm

Ellen Jackson talks about ways to cope with rejection.

Success as a writer depends more on intelligent persistence than on raw talent. By "intelligent persistence" I mean the ability to learn from mistakes, to figure out what you’re doing wrong, and then to change it.

Another thing she talked about was what to do before you get rejected, i.e. have a plan in place. So I’ve planned out what to do both today and tomorrow.

So here are my vows, that I’m placing out here for all the world* to see:

I am going to finish that one dratted scene that I’ve been wrestling with all week. I am going to do that now. Right now. I will not check email or take my turn on Words With Friends or even start the laundry. Me and my imagination vs. that scene, one round.

I want to get that writing done today, before I might have to wrestle with the demons of self-doubt. They love to sneer at me for thinking I have delusions of adequacy, and a rejection strengthens them tenfold.
Tomorrow, good news or ill, I am going to plan out my schedule so that I will have time to exercise. Whatever else I do tomorrow, I am going to take the time to work out. Nothing helps me cope with stress like vigorous exercise.

Posting these vows publicly is one way that I will ensure that I actually Do These Things. I am using you all, shamelessly, as a way to hold me accountable.

So I figure that I am now prepared, hopefully, for rejection.

(I am thinking that if I become a finalist, I won’t need to prepare myself for that news. I think I could cope with success. Kind of like Dorothy Parker’s saying about wealth: “I’ve never been a millionaire, but I know I’d be just darling at it.”)

*All the world that accesses this site, which is to say a lot of people who either have been or will be in the same boat.

mccardey · Aug 17, 2014

You know we'll be back here checking on you - the

one dratted scene,

the

vigorous exercise

But just for now - good luck tomorrow. :Hug2:

Evelyn_Alexie · Aug 17, 2014

One dratted scene -- done. Not brilliantly done, it'll definitely need a rewrite, but there's a dratted beginning, a dratted middle, and a dratted end to it. One reason I couldn't get it written was that I was trying to stuff too much into it. Now I've gotten the basic scene on the page, I can try to edit out the drattedness.

Antonin · Aug 17, 2014

Good luck and take it easy.

Antonin · Aug 17, 2014

Ha! Double posted!

Getting out the drat is always the hardest part eh?

Fruitbat · Aug 17, 2014

Ha, "prejection." Love it! I get it all ready to instantly go out to the next place/s on the list upon rejection.

blacbird · Aug 17, 2014

i tried to resist, but I just can't. I know Ellen Jackson's blog was meant in good faith and with good intentions, but I really do have trouble feeling the angst of a writer who got her first submitted story, in a first draft, accepted by one of the first five publishers she sent it to.

Not heavily inspiring.

caw

mccardey · Aug 17, 2014

blacbird said:
I really do have trouble feeling the angst of a writer who got her first submitted story, in a first draft, accepted by one of the first five publishers she sent it to.

Not heavily inspiring.

caw

Come on, bird. We should ignore people who've been successful?

My first book was picked up within a month by Pan Macmillan - who were the first people my agent subbed to.

It didn't make Second Book any easier.

Parametric · Aug 18, 2014

blacbird said:
i tried to resist, but I just can't. I know Ellen Jackson's blog was meant in good faith and with good intentions, but I really do have trouble feeling the angst of a writer who got her first submitted story, in a first draft, accepted by one of the first five publishers she sent it to.

Not heavily inspiring.

mccardey said:
Come on, bird. We should ignore people who've been successful?

My first book was picked up within a month by Pan Macmillan - who were the first people my agent subbed to.

It didn't make Second Book any easier.

I'm with blacbird here. The writer obviously has an impressive talent to the point where even her first drafts of early manuscripts sell 40,000 copies. That's a worthwhile story to tell, but I'm not sure how much it teaches you about how to deal with genuine rejection, ie. when none of your manuscripts are selling at all, in any way, however much time and effort you put in. Hers is a story of early success, not learning to cope with failure.

Wilde_at_heart · Aug 18, 2014

Parametric said:
I'm with blacbird here. The writer obviously has an impressive talent to the point where even her first drafts of early manuscripts sell 40,000 copies. That's a worthwhile story to tell, but I'm not sure how much it teaches you about how to deal with genuine rejection, ie. when none of your manuscripts are selling at all, in any way, however much time and effort you put in. Hers is a story of early success, not learning to cope with failure.

This. I'm much more inspired by some of the writers on here who stuck it out until the 300th person they found success with.

Evelyn_Alexie · Aug 18, 2014

Honestly, I think it's completely irrelevant whether the woman found success early, or late, or at all. I think that's missing the point. Even writers who have been published multiple times can encounter rejection.

The point is that this woman found a way to deal with rejection that worked for her.

Sorry -- can't write more -- have to go off and exercise. Vigorously.

blacbird · Aug 18, 2014

mccardey said:
Come on, bird. We should ignore people who've been successful?

I'm not ignoring, or denigrating, people who've been successful, in any way. I never envy anyone's success.*

My point was that, as Parametric said more clearly, this blog post wasn't so much about how to deal with rejection, as it was a tale of early success. I read it expecting some astute and encouraging advice about dealing with rejection. The only lesson I learn from it is, hey, send off your first drafts as fast as you can, and you might get lucky. It has very little relevance if you don't get lucky.

caw

* I do envy other people's ability and talent. I'm doing the best I can to populate the opposite end of the ability and talent bell curve.

mccardey · Aug 18, 2014

blacbird said:
I'm not ignoring, or denigrating, people who've been successful, in any way. I never envy anyone's success.*

My point was that, as Parametric said more clearly, this blog post wasn't so much about how to deal with rejection, as it was a tale of early success.
caw
.

Ok - my bad. I misread your tone. Sorry.

henmatth · Aug 19, 2014

Well ... just take things easy and relax.
Tomorrow's a big day for you ... so good luck.
May the best man win !!!

Fuchsia Groan · Aug 19, 2014

blacbird said:
I'm not ignoring, or denigrating, people who've been successful, in any way. I never envy anyone's success.*

My point was that, as Parametric said more clearly, this blog post wasn't so much about how to deal with rejection, as it was a tale of early success. I read it expecting some astute and encouraging advice about dealing with rejection. The only lesson I learn from it is, hey, send off your first drafts as fast as you can, and you might get lucky. It has very little relevance if you don't get lucky.

I dunno. She had to wait an entire year to hear back from that publisher, and she was assuming her ms. was rejected because the teacher had trashed it. It seems like an atypical situation, no doubt about that (did her book sit in the slush for months and months?), but it must have been a depressing year. That part I can relate to, as well as the paragraph about how every writer's heart gets stomped on repeatedly.

Here's another blog post from a best-selling author that I found weirdly inspiring. Yes, she's more successful than I can ever dream of being. Yet, for nearly every book that got published, she has another complete ms. that didn't make it. Another book she poured her heart and soul into. This makes me feel better about all the time I, too, have "wasted" on my manuscript graveyard, on dead ends and almost-happeneds.

My favorite stories are about the people who racked up tons of rejections for years and then something clicked. (I'm one of them!) But those people are always still facing down the specter of rejection.

Covering local authors for a newspaper, I see all the time how unstable the profession is. I may talk to a respected writer with a "big book" he's all excited about ... which then ends up in his ms. graveyard, or being published by a tiny local press. Then some other guy comes from nowhere and puts up a not-so-great book on Amazon and sells 80,000 copies. Sure, the local name-brand author who was on Oprah will continue to pop out a best-seller every year, but everybody else is struggling, always struggling, against rejection.

blacbird · Aug 19, 2014

I have had rejections arrive after longer than a year from submission. Yes, even well-established writers get rejections, we all know that. There's a (possibly apocryphal) story about Pearl Buck receiving a rejection on the same morning she was notified of winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. But I'll bet my house that rejection didn't hurt much.

There's a qualitative difference between rejections received after you've had acceptances, and getting nothing but rejections, ever and always.

caw

Fuchsia Groan · Aug 19, 2014

There is a difference. But writers with some acceptances can still have imposter syndrome and feel like every acceptance they got was sheer good luck, was because they put aside the book they really wanted to write to do something more commercial, was because they caught the agent/editor on a good day, etc., etc.

And who knows? Maybe sometimes they're right. Maybe it wasn't just talent that got them to a yes. Is talent ever enough by itself? Maybe for an elite few.

I got nothing but rejections for a long, long time, and I wouldn't go back there for anything in the world. But if you're prone to doubting yourself in the first place (and some writers aren't), the terror, while somewhat diminished, remains.

When I was 17, I thought that if my colleges of choice accepted me, I would never fear rejection again. Here I am with a degree from two big prestigious schools, laughing at my younger self. How am I different from somebody who didn't get in? I know all the shortcomings of the big prestigious schools, and I have something to stick on my resume. Which is great. But since I failed to turn my fancy education into a career (which could be the rough equivalent of fizzling out as a published writer with a nice first advance), that's about it.

spikeman4444 · Aug 20, 2014

I see it both ways. It's hard to take advice about rejection from someone who maybe never experienced rejection, and certainly has now experienced success whereas we have not. However, good advice is good advice, and if something can be taken from what she said and used as a tool for our benefit, why not listen to it? what she has to say could be more relevant and beneficial than advice from someone who has been rejected countless times over 50 years. If it helps it helps, regardless of the backstory behind it

Prejection, or What to Expect When You Are Expecting Rejection

Evelyn_Alexie

mccardey

Evelyn_Alexie

Antonin

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Antonin

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Fruitbat

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blacbird

mccardey

Parametric

Wilde_at_heart

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Evelyn_Alexie

blacbird

mccardey

henmatth

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Fuchsia Groan

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blacbird

Fuchsia Groan

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spikeman4444

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Prejection, or What to Expect When You Are Expecting Rejection

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New Fish; Learning About Thick Skin

Becoming a laptop-human hybrid

Becoming a laptop-human hybrid

The snozberrys taste lke snozberrys

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