Dealing with rejection as a writer
Everyone who's ever tried to be a writer knows there's a lot of rejection involved. You might have seen my rejection round-up of 2020 just before Christmas, I'd had over a hundred failed submissions by that point and I added a few more before the year was out. I listed them there as submissions that were 'rejected or ignored'. I referred to them a moment ago as submissions that 'failed'. Harsh words, all.
Now, it might strike you as odd for someone who works with words, but personally I don't mind what we call the non-acceptances. I've seen arguments for 'acceptances and declinations' - you decline a party invitation, you don't tend to reject it. Though I guess it depends who's asking. Submittable, one of the most popular submission managers, labels completed transactions as Accepted or Declined. In the common parlance, however, it's rejections. And it comes with as much psychological baggage as you might expect.
It's easy to feel like the editor is rejecting your writing, throwing it over as not worth bothering with, even rejecting you, the writer, altogether. Particularly if it's your third rejection this morning, your eighth from that magazine, and your twenty-third for that story. However, usually - admittedly not always - they are not rejecting you as a writer, probably not really 'rejecting' that story. It may be that if you'd submitted that same story for the previous issue they'd have taken it, or they'll snap up the next thing you send them. In the meantime, here's a couple of tips from me that might help take the sting out. I might have had a fair few stories accepted now but I've had way more than that rejected, so I have useful experience...
Copy the nice bits from rejections into your spreadsheet
What do you mean you don't have a spreadsheet? If you want to keep track of all your submissions regardless of whether you emailed an attachment, used Submittable, or filled in a contact form on a website, a spreadsheet is the logical way to go. Make a few columns with simple headings so you know what you sent where, when, and what the outcome was. I have a wide notes column at the end, and if I got any personal feedback whatsoever, it goes in there in quotation marks so I know I've lifted it verbatim from a response. Even if it's a standard rejection of the 'but please try us again' type, I'll quote that encouraging phrase. That way, when I feel like abandoning a particular story I can look back through some of the positive responses I've got for it - or similar stories - before and take heart. Or if I feel like maybe I've lost the knack, I can remind myself of the encouraging things editors have said about recent stories that haven't quite made it (or that have made it - the excited 'yes please' with the reasons why, is a good thing to keep here too).
Screenshot praise for your work on Twitter (particularly from strangers)
This one makes me sound vain, I know. Maybe I am. I'm definitely human though, and flicking through praise for published work perks me up when I'm having a day where I start wondering if I should give up on this writing lark. Friends and supportive acquaintances are likely to have said nice things which, on a bad day, you will convince yourself arose from obligation. This is why I strongly advise you to store away any praise from strangers. You will need to be having a seriously bad, beyond redemption, day to convince yourself that the stranger was being polite or had mistaken you for someone else. I mention Twitter because it's where I hang out, but comments left on online stories, relevant paragraphs from a review of the anthology you were in, anything that you can look at later that reminds you someone enjoyed your writing and took the time and trouble to say so.
If you're just starting out, build up a store of these things as you go along. If you've been going for a while and you suffer from self-doubt, trust me when I say it's worth trawling back through the rejection emails to copy the nice bits into your spreadsheet. And if you enjoy someone's writing, say so - you might not only make their day today, but cheer them up in years to come.
If this has helped, you can always buy me a cuppa…
