I had a conversation with a friend recently where they lamented their lack of writing success so far. At the point, I did the only thing I could do – brought up my nice list of rejections dating back to around 2013 when I was submitting short stories and other things pretty regularly. I’m happy to say it turned into a great learning experience for the pair of us.
All writers experience rejection. If you submit short stories to magazines and collections, those rejections come thick and fast. Many of my short stories didn’t include lesbian or bisexual characters, and that was a choice at the time because I was focusing my novel-length energies on some complex relationships. My short stories tended to focus on a small moment in a life that didn’t necessarily relate to any character’s personal life. My attitude (whether it was wrong or right) was that those stories were more likely to be published in mainstream publications if they didn’t include extraneous relationships unrelated to the plot. You can get away with that when writing short stories, but I’m not kidding myself I could do justice to a love story involving a woman and a man – at least, not right now.
So, my short story rejections mounted up, and that was fine. I knew what I was getting into when I started this writing lark. Even if you work solely on lengthy works of fiction and decide to self-publish, rejection is still going to haunt you. There will be bad reviews, rejection from readers that may or may not be warranted. You won’t get away from that, even if you sell thousands of books.
Let’s be clear – rejection hurts. Even if it’s just a twinge of regret or frustration when you read the email, there’s always a reaction. Sure, for a while you might want to give up, but rejections are rarely as personal as they feel. If you react to a rejection by carrying on, you’ll become a better writer.
Opening that spreadsheet gave me some perspective on how far I’ve come as a writer. It also gave my friend the opportunity to see that you can be rejected and move on and on and on. To be honest, it brightened up their day. Just think – one day your rejection stories might brighten someone else’s day!
