I received another rejection note this week. Ugh. Another failure? This time from Creative Non-Fiction magazine where I’d submitted a short story. The letter was polite and encouraging. You know the sort. A form letter.
The story was based on an early version of a chapter of my baby journal book, which seemed a perfect fit for their anthology about babies. Apparently, I was wrong.
Am I alone in this?
We tend not to share our failures the same way we share our triumphs. No one posts on social media or sends e-mails to share the news that “Hey! That project I’ve been working on for months? Totally went down the crapper.” Oh and the book I sent to an agent? Only one person responded, and she doesn’t want it. I have no idea why.
Rejection rarely comes with an explanation. You get the polite form letter, saying a very disingenuous “we loved your work; you’re great, and we’re sure you’ll find much success in life.” Just not with us, not now and not with this piece of writing?
Rejection is the big blank with no answers. Rejection creates doubt, leaving us with that sinking feeling that maybe our work is shit. Why bother trying?
But bother you must!
Failure and rejection are not our enemies. Your fear of them is the problem.
There are endless reasons you will be rejected, countless ways to fail. It’s not personal.
You will be rejected because people are jealous. You will be rejected, because they don’t understand. Some simply won’t be paying enough attention and thus will overlook your genius. You will be rejected because, quite frankly, you didn’t really do your best. Your work wasn’t good enough and you need to revise. Or because what you offered simply didn’t fit the needs of the other person.
Failure because someone else says no is just a no. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it causes us to question ourselves, but ultimately, you control whether or not you fail or succeed.
When your fear keeps you from writing, submitting or sharing your work with others, then you have chosen failure. Full stop.
Instead, make yourself comfortable with failure.
Accept it! Embrace it! Love it!
Failure and rejection are not only part of the writing process, but they are also necessary for you to succeed.
Joshua Foer wrote a chapter of a recent book titled Maximize Your Potential in which he talks about the “OK Plateau.” The OK Plateau refers to the moment you believe you know what you’re doing, so you get comfortable. You repeat the same process, same steps, and ultimately, you don’t grow.
When you push yourself, make mistakes and leave yourself open to failure, that’s when you grow and truly succeed.
Something experts in all fields tend to do when they’re practicing is to operate outside of their comfort zone and study themselves failing. The best figure skaters in the world spend more of their practice time practicing jumps that they don’t land than lesser figure skaters do. The same is true of musicians. When most musicians sit down to practice, they play the parts of pieces that they’re good at. Of course they do: it’s fun to succeed. But expert musicians tend to focus on the parts that are hard, the parts they haven’t yet mastered. They way to get better at a skill is to force yourself beyond your limits.
Bottom line: If you never face rejection and failure, you’re doing something wrong.
You are in good company!
Hundreds of best selling authors were initially rejected only to find great success in their writing careers.
The first author I ever loved, Madeleine L’Engle was rejected 26 times before she found a publisher and went on to win awards and sell millions of copies with A Wrinkle In Time.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho? Sold abysmally until he found a new publisher and sold 75 million copies.
My advice to you?
Don’t make excuses for why you can quit. If you want to write, write. If you want to publish, send out those submissions and prepare for a slew of painful, horrible rejection and failure. Do the work that will get you where you want to go. Those are the very things that will make you a stronger and more successful writer.
Oh, and that piece I sent to Creative Non-Fiction? I’ve given it another read through, edited and submitted it elsewhere. Forward!
