Rejection is a part of life. Everyone experiences a form of it at one point or another. Maybe you didn’t get into your top choice for college. Maybe a love interest didn’t feel the same way. Rejection never feels good but like anything else in life, you learn to deal with it over time.
Those in creative pursuits are particularly adept at navigating rejection. The ones that don’t develop this skill don’t last too long. Being told you’re not good enough stings. It never exactly gets easier, but you can find ways to avoid dwelling on it.
Some will tell you that rejection should invigorate you to hone your craft. Use it as motivation to get better. The truth is, repeatedly being told “thanks but no thanks” snowballs over time and can make even the most talented musician/writer/actor/painter start to wonder if the hours and hours of hard work will ever pay off.
Being rejected sucks. Every time.
I’ve written six novels (plus one novella) and a bunch of short stories (not sure the exact number). Each of these novels has taken a massive amount of work and has received just a tiny bit more than no sign of interest from anybody in the publishing world. Short story acceptances are great, but writers are always looking to land that giant fish: a published novel.
I sent out my first query for a novel titled “Yield” on June 24th, 2011. Then came “Overhead,” “Blind Fault,” “A Jumbled Collection of Excuses,” and “Not Too Long, Not Long Enough.” These novels were all submitted to various literary agents and publishing houses over the course of the last decade.
There were some nice rejections sprinkled over the course of this time period, but rejections all the same.
I started querying my latest novel last August. I experienced the very familiar string of form rejections and no-replies over the following months. And even though this response is nothing new, it’s still not exactly fun.
That all came to an end recently when Unsolicited Press wrote me a very kind email offering a publishing contract for “The Present Is Past,” my latest novel.
I’m incredibly excited and honored that they’ve chosen to take on my book as a project. It’s going to be a lot of work for people I have never even met, and I don’t take that lightly. Their time is incredibly important, so the fact that they’ve decided to use that time to bring my novel to life is humbling.
I’ve made 330 novel submissions over the last ten years. This gives me a 0.3% success rate. I think transparency is important, especially if any writers happen to stumble upon this. I wonder how I would have interpreted this number when I was first starting out. Would I have written all of these failed books if I knew none of them would move beyond my Microsoft Word folder?
Maybe. Maybe not. They say if you’re writing to be published then you’re writing for the wrong reason. You’re supposed to write for the enjoyment of it. There’s some truth to that, but it’s ridiculous to expect people not to want all of their hard work to be recognized.
I think of it more like working out. Sometimes it’s easy to lace up your running shoes and head out the door. Other days it’s the last thing you want to do. And even when I’m trotting along the road, I’m counting down the steps until I make it back home.
There’s a reason writers are notorious for avoiding work. It’s difficult. Sometimes it sucks. But like exercising, it feels great once it’s done. Of course you should write because you enjoy it, but don’t deny yourself the desire to be rewarded. Any motivation to sit down and plunk away on the keys produces work. And isn’t that the goal?
So I don’t know if I would have plugged away for 15 years (pretty sure I started the first book in 2006, but it might’ve been 2007) if I knew it’d take that long to finally get a “yes.” I guess it doesn’t really matter. There’s something to be said for delusional confidence. I thought each book was great once I started to submit it. However, I recently re-read my second novel and I can plainly see why it garnered so many rejection slips. But you learn. You keep trying. And you keep failing.
Because who cares? There’s no reason to fear rejection. Writers fail in private. Nobody reads those form rejections but you. So pile them up. And then one day (full disclosure: it might be 15 years down the road) when you get that “yes,” you can count up your rejections, laugh at the microscopic success rate, and wonder how you had the gall to attempt it in the first place.
“The Present Is Past,” is due out summer 2023. I’ll spam you with reminders when the time comes.