Dear Rejected: Here's How To Press On And Improve Your Odds

Lit Salon addresses the truth of rejection in the literary life from three angles: the human, the artistic, and the mathematical + the real reason rejection hurts like hell & how to keep going

“We all line up to ask each other for help.” 

–Tomas Tranströmer, “Solitude”

This sentiment is so beautiful. It reminds me of something Dorothy Allison said when I had the great fortune of studying with her years ago at a Tin House Winter Workshop.

My cohort was meeting in the private beach house next door to the Sylvia Beach Hotel, and Dorothy and I were walking together from the hotel over to the beach house just a few minutes before workshop was supposed to start.

A short, beautiful walk on a warm morning.

I was totally aflutter to be shoulder-to-shoulder with Dorothy—my longtime idol—so you might expect that I would barely remember our conversation at all. When you are star struck, the words just kind of hang and glow like meaningless orbs in the air around you.

But the truth is, it was a short walk and Dorothy didn’t say all that much—she doesn’t use a lot of extra words—and I do recall vividly the main thing Dorothy said to me that morning, because she prefaced it with a sigh, a laugh, a small shrug, thus garnering my full attention before she opened her mouth and said, “All we have to is help each other, right? That’s it. That’s all we’re here to do.”

I’ve never forgotten those words. She spoke them and meant them so sincerely in approaching the task we work-shoppers were about to face over the next few days of assessing and discussing one another’s manuscripts, with Dorothy as our brazen, brave, big-hearted leader.

All we had to do is help each other.

Such a simple truth.

Sometimes, though, the writing life doesn’t feel aligned with that truth. Sometimes it feels like the opposite, like the mountains are too steep to climb and the helpers are few and far between.

That’s what this month’s Lit Salon addresses: how to persevere when we’re feeling beleaguered by the challenges, especially the challenge of rejection.

If you’re a writer seeking any form of traditional publication, a writer who submits or wants to eventually submit your work to journals, magazines and/or presses and publishers, and who struggles with or worries about the issue of rejection—this post is for you.

It offers some concrete strategies for navigating a competitive, rejection-heavy path with the most resilience and the least suffering.

Lit Salon

Dear Jeannine,

I feel frustrated with myself for even asking a question about rejection, because I know, I know, I know … it’s just part of the deal with writing. Right? It’s just part of the deal? But, honestly, how do you deal with it? Or are you past that at this point?

The thing is, I’ve landed a few acceptances in good journals over the last few years, I’ve gotten nothing but rejections lately. And it’s getting me down something bad. I’m struggling to the point where I don’t even want to send my work out to journals let alone enter my work for residencies, fellowships, contests, etc. And the thing is, I know it’s self-defeating to let rejections get me down like this, but also … I can’t seem to help it lately. I’m just wallowing in disappointment.

Any wisdom for me?

Signed,

Rejected

Dear Rejected,

I’m so glad you asked this question. Because I am definitely not “past the pain of rejection at this point.” If only! But I’ve definitely developed some strategies for dealing with it, and for working pretty effectively and consistently in spite of the inevitable flow of nos.

And the first thing I want to say is also the most simplest and most important: I embrace rejection as a sign that I am producing new work/applications/etc. and sending it out into the world. I even have, in the past, set goals for how many rejections I can get in a year, with the point being, of course, to get myself to create and submit more work, to stay productive and engaged.

But, that simple and important strategy is just the tip of the iceberg—the ice itself being far more complex, nuanced, and labor intensive. The truth is, this is a complicated topic and I’ve got some complicated processes around ensuring that I can embrace rejection, even when it hurts, while still continuing to make work.

It’s helpful to look at the problem of rejection from a few different angles:

1.   The human angle (i.e., how do we, as humans who are wired, for survival reasons, to avoid rejection, supposed to come to terms with experiencing it on a regular basis?)

2.   The artistic angle (i.e., what, if anything, can I do to improve and better target my work in order to slightly reduce my odds of rejection?)

3.   The mathematical angle (i.e., this is a numbers game, so how do we approach it in a way that won’t wreck us the way a slot machine will wreck someone stuck to the chair in front of it?)

So, here are the three main things I do, all of which have worked for me and continue to work, as long as I do them.