Rejecting Rejection

There’s no worse feeling for a writer: opening the mailbox to discover an envelope addressed to you, written by you.

The news is never good. There’s no need, really, to even open the damn thing. But you’re a writer, ergo a bit of  a masochist. A voice inside your head whispers, “Hey, you never know.”

So, despite the urge to burn before reading, you rip it open. “Dear Author,” it typically begins, if you’re lucky enough to get that personal of a greeting. The rest of what is usually a short note can be reduced to one disemboweling, blood-soaked word: REJECTED!

Why waste the paper, or index card in many cases, and the ink and some editorial assistant’s precious time to feign graciousness, apologies and well-wishes? Simply send back the self-addressed stamped envelope (nothing like paying, even if it is just 42 cents, to receive such an unwelcome delivery) with the word REJECTED—in big, bold red ink—stamped on it, right above the name and address.

For decades, “experts”—in books, in writing magazines and now on the Web—have encouraged writers to “see rejection letters as learning tools.” Could any advice be more laughable? Take, for instance, the following example of a real rejection of a full-blown nonfiction book proposal (not simply a query, mind you):

Please forgive this impersonal note regarding your query, which we have considered but must decline. We hope you can understand that we receive a tremendous number of queries, and are forced to focus our attention on a limited number of projects. We encourage you to keep writing….

Thanks for the encouragement! OK, to be fair, most “experts,” who are often the ones doing the rejecting, argue only rejections that go beyond mere form letter can produce any helpful tidbits. Receiving one of these, though, is about as likely as finding a garbage bag full of $100 bills on the side of the highway. Even if a publisher or agent provides you with one of these rare specimens, it’s unlikely to contain any worthwhile information. And just when you think you’ve successfully read between the lines to decipher a hint or two, another gruesome SASE finds its way to your address, expressing a precisely contradictory judgment. That’s not to say you shouldn’t, upon receipt of rejections, be re-evaluating your project, rethinking your approach, looking for ways to improve your proposal, and correcting possible flaws in your manuscript. You should. But relying on rejection letters as your guide will lead you down dark alleys and dead ends.

Then there’s always this bit of advice: don’t take it personal. I disagree. Here’s the closing portion of a rejection letter sent to a literary agent from a senior editor at Random House:

I do think [the subject of the book] is very much in the public eye, but, in the end, I’m not convinced that these authors are the ones to put it together.

It couldn’t be more personal. To be sure, not all rejections are as overtly harsh. But, it seems to me, the bland platitudes of the standard, one-size-fits-all form letter are even more obscene and offensive. Years of confronting blank page after blank page after blank page result in a such a generic response, addressed to “Author,” that it makes you seriously question if anyone at all, anywhere in the building, actually read any of your submission. Personal? Personal! Better yet, all the motivation you’ll ever need.

Rejection is not failure, only motivation.

So how does a writer deal with potentially poisonous reverberations of rejection? James Lee Burke, in a New York Times essay for its Writers on Writing series, offers the only legitimate antidote: “I gave myself 36 hours to put the manuscripts back in the mail, and I’ve maintained the same system all these years, because to keep the work at home is to ensure its failure.”

Rejection is not failure—and should not be a deterrent. Allowing it to be such is, indeed, failure. The simple, however unpleasant, truth: rejection—as bad as it stings (always does and always will)—is an inextricable fact of life for writers who want to publish their work. There’s no way around that—no matter who you are, no matter how little or how much you have previously published (save for the rarest of exceptions).  As Ralph Keyes, author of The Writer’s Book of Hope: Getting From Frustration to Publication, puts it: “To working writers, rejection is like stings to a beekeeper: a painful but necessary part of their vocation.”

And because it is, so too is patience, persistence and perseverance.