What's Worse - Rejection or the Wait?

I've been submitting to lit mag markets for a couple of months, and I find it best to sub and forget. Move on to writing the next piece and continue outlining the novel. A rejection simply means "no". When I get one, I'm jubilant if it's personalised. The idea that someone has read my writing is also satisfying. Otherwise I don't engage emotionally. I simply write the next cover letter and fire the manuscript at to the next market on its submission list.

If I had to choose between rejection and waiting being worst, I would say waiting. Hands down. Normally, I think nothing of it. But I haven't had the experience of silence yet. I can imagine that crushing my spirit, if I received it starting out.

The wait honestly. I've just got my first rejection. It beats waiting around for about five months without hearing anything back. I just want to know what they think and it's irritating me that I don't know yet.

I've taken to printing my submissions, shredding them, and flushing them down the toilet. I get the same results I've always gotten via mailing them, but no longer have to have angst about the wait.

caw

I used to think that the wait was worse. Then I got rejected on a full after 4 months (very nice, personalised rejection; extrememly helpful) and found out that the kick in the stomach from rejection is still worse . . .

So I wrote a blog post about it, of course.

blacbird said:

I've taken to printing my submissions, shredding them, and flushing them down the toilet. I get the same results I've always gotten via mailing them, but no longer have to have angst about the wait.

caw

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Funny, I've considered tying résumés around rocks and throwing them off a mountain. Similar principle, and you know exactly where it's ended up.

Waiting is by worse than a rejection. With a rejection at least I feel there is accomplishment. With waiting I don't know if my query ever has gotten read or if it has deleted without a reply. In the music industry never being replied to was completely normal. So to get a response from an agent (or his or her assistant) at all is still a good thing.

I feel the way I used to feel when my Dad took me fishing. We'd fish all day long and get maybe 3 fish *, so it was a case of flinging out the baited hook and then finding something else to occupy your time, because there's no purpose or satisfaction in remaining alert and anticipating. You also come to realize that there's nothing you can do once you've put your hook in the water: now it's all up to the fish and all you can do is wait.

It's also how I fell about job hunting, come to think of it. Wallpaper the universe in resumes and cover letters and try to stay detached from the process.







* & no, I don't know why he found this a pleasant activity. To this day, I rank fishing right up there by farming. I don't know anyone who eagerly seeks out the chance to plow the north 40 and I'll be damned if I understand why some folks find fishing to be fun.

I side with Tom Petty. The waiting is the hardest part.

Rejection is easier to deal with if no more pleasant. If you haven't developed a hide tougher than a rhino's backside, you might find yourself lying in bed all day with the curtains drawn and the blankets pulled up to your head sobbing uncontrollably over the harsh and unfair fates.

Later for that. I could be up eating something tasty or copping a feel of my wife's butt when she walks by. I can't let the bad judgment of someone else ruin my life over and over.

I'm with those saying the wait is worse. I've never been very patient, so querying is very hard for me. I just got a rejection the other day and I was actually relieved, because it was an answer. If they don't like the work, that's fine, I just want to know so I can move on. Waiting is agonizing.

I've gotten used to waiting. It doesn't faze me to expect several months to pass before hearing back about a story. However, maybe that's because when I sold my first novel I broke the cardinal rule of simultaneously submitting. I grew so weary of waiting six months for a form rejection that I just picked a dozen publishers whose terms I felt suited my work and blanketed them all with the manuscript. Lo and behold, the first to accept the book got to publish it and I withdrew from the others. It got the job done.

An acceptance is of course ideal, but for me I'd say the actual wait is worse. At least once you get rejected you know what their answer is, but whenever you have yet to hear back it could go either way. (Sure, the hope is nice, but I'm pessimistic when it comes to subbing.) Once you get rejected you can at least move on with submitting it somewhere else, considering a lot of places don't take simultaneous submissions.
Just my take~

Combination of both right now.

After four sets of complete revisions over one year with a literary agent who then passed, I'd say rejection is worse. I also came sooo close with another book that was passed around at a literary agency. The agent was on the fence and decided to pass. Both of those were heartbreaking because I was really hoping for representation.

I'm currently waiting to hear back from an agent who has my manuscript. With this one, I may be a little disappointed if she passes, but I do have a backup plan.

So I guess it depends on your mindset.

rejection, hands down. It's a closed door, when waiting is still open.

Mclesh, four revisions? Ouch. Sorry to about that.

MorganicMoon said:

Mclesh, four revisions? Ouch. Sorry to about that.

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Yes, that was brutal. But I'm almost over it now. Thanks!

For me, it's the waiting. I mean, rejection sucks. It majorly sucks, in fact. It's soul-crushing and depressing. But at least you get closure that way, which makes it easier to move on to your next plan (2nd choice agents, small presses, self-pubbing, what-have-you).

Personally, I'm still waiting on four agents I've recently nudged (one has a partial, three have fulls, all from around the same time in January), and have heard nothing but crickets. It's driving me batty, I swear--especially since they're all supposedly responders. I really believe in that particular project and I just want to move on with it, but the waiting has me stuck in a swamp of uncertainty. I'm finding it hard to even sit at the computer to work on my new WIP without obsessively wanting to check for email. It's quite pathetic, really. But I just want to KNOW at this point, ya know?

So yeah. For me, it's the waiting.