CH 1 Writing Through Rejection

Rejection is part of the process.

Chapter 1. Rejection is Part of the Process

When I was a kid, my mom used to picture herself as a writer. She was very educated. She taught primary school during the day, and continued her education at George Peabody College for Teachers, working on her doctorate, but in her spare time, she did three things. She took care of our family. She always read Writers’ Digest magazine, and she wrote some essays and submitted them to far-away magazines and publishers.

The process was slow back then, but after a couple of months or so, the mail would deliver a rejection slip.

She never made a scene or slammed things around. She took it gracefully. Now, I don’t know her mental processes at that point, but I feel sure she filed her rejection away and continued with the process she had begun that hopefully would carry her to become an author.

I was too young to be very knowledgeable about it at that time, but I know she had to typewrite all her submissions, had to be typewritten and mailed by USPS, so slow it was. But I don’t think she ever quit until her later years.

I understand that current authors such as J.K. Rowling, and Stephen King experienced rejection on a few levels.

Rejected by our readers

When I think of rejection, in these days of increasingly prevalent ways to self-publish and platforms such as KDP, Medium, and Substack, we don’t have to wait on some nameless, faceless editor to reject us. We can be rejected by our readers almost immediately. And whether or not we are being rejected, not only depends on what they say about our stories, but also on what we perceive them to be saying.

A poor comment always tends to make me feel rejected. After I have worked hard and turned out what I think is a beautiful piece, somebody comes along and says, in print, that the story wasn’t that great. They never say why. But I always feel bad.

I’m still working to perfect the idea of thinking of bad reviews as feedback instead of failure, whether or not it feels like it at the time. It’s just part of the writer’s journey, and it can be used to strengthen your creativity.

I, personally, have a penchant for finding life to be humorous, so I use humor more than most other writers. No matter what a reader says about my writing, at least I have a reader, and I found that it would never be to my advantage to argue back. Their rejection does not define my talent.

Try keeping a simple record of marginal to bad reviews. After twenty-five, buy yourself a Lamborghini. Now, let them mock you.

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