It’s blog chain time again and I’m next up in the chain gang. Soma, my predecessor, talked about rejection and how, regardless of what’s said, it’s always personal. Alas, I must disagree. To a point.
If you get a rejection letter back saying, “This blew dogs for quarters. Do us all a favor and never set pen to paper again,” then yes, I would have to say that’s pretty personal and that would probably be a rejection I posted on my blog, with name, to show just how much of an ass said agent was. But after reading a few agent blogs and getting their take on the slush pile, it’s really hard to sympathize with writers who just don’t get it.
If you do get it, and you understand that a pile of form rejections means that it’s something you’re doing wrong, then you’re good and I’m sure you’ll work to improve that. If you don’t get it and see a pile of form rejections as X number of agents overlooking your talent and they don’t know what they’re missing, I’m really not going to pity you when you get a rejection of the type above.
I’ve been writing since I was 9 and submitting since I was 17 (16?) and getting overwhelmingly rejected ever since, with a sprinkle of happiness in between. I never once, in all those years, wept over a rejection, nor did I become discouraged or throw myself a pity party. A rejection came in, another submission went out. If enough of them came back on one piece, I realized, as a lowly teenager, that the piece just wasn’t good enough and to stop submitting it, which I did. The harsh reality of publishing is not everyone is good enough to get published. Thanks to self-publishing, any schmuck with a word processor can publish his masterpiece and proclaim the fallacy, “I’m published!” but outside those delusions of grandeur, most of the writing out there really isn’t good enough.
It’s a jagged pill to swallow but one that one must regardless. There will be a point in many writers’ lives where they’ll have to reconsider their goals. If they have hundreds of rejections and nothing to show for it otherwise, it might be time to downgrade the writing from a career goal to a hobby. It’s not a bad thing but I’m sure it’s a hard thing to do. I know I’d be hard-pressed to do it but seeing as I’m only 25, I sure as hell am not giving up yet. I have work that I know will never see the likes of traditional publishing which I plan to self-publish. Self-publishing is not a bad thing so long as you don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re a published author. There’s a big difference between Lulu and Random House and publishing with the former will just never be the same as publishing with the latter not only in spirit but in technicality.
The thing is to persist and recognize your own faults. You’re not getting numerous form rejections because all those agents are stupid and overlooking your talents. You’re getting the rejections because something is wrong with your work. The ones who strive for traditional publishing credits will recognize that and do whatever they can to remedy it. The delusional ones will continue to wallow in self pity and publicly shit upon the business because they think their work is gold and should be available to the masses. For them I have no pity.
Perhaps it’s due to my gymnastics background. From the age of roughly 7 I was told, in no uncertain terms and without any kind of sugar-coating, ‘are you broken? No? Then get the hell up and do it again.’ Maybe all writers should start off as gymnasts. That way their wills get trampled on at an early age and it better prepares them for the inevitable rejection that will come later on down the road. Or people just need to grow a set and admit that their work isn’t the gold piece of an answer to publishing that they think it is.
Rejection is hard but are you broken? No? Then get the fuck up and do it again.
Now it’s off to Asian Business to continue on with the chain gang.
Auria Cortes
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For the First Time
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Comments
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 11:26 am and is filed under On Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I agree with you that self publishing is not same like getting published. Self publishing is not bad but there is nothing to show off about it.
On our last bicycle trip around the USA and Mexico we continually told our kids that our journey was like chicken soup - the good and the bad all worked together to make the whole. Sure, it was tempting to just choose the good and skip the bad, but 1) that wasn’t possible and 2) it would be the same if we could.
It was the horrible days that made us appreciate the good ones. those days when we fought headwinds from hell, freezing cold temperatures, or torrential downpours were the yuck part. But those days make appreciate the beautiful spring days when the wind was on our backs. Without one, we couldn’t appreciate the other.
As a writer, it all goes in that big pot of chicken soup - the rejections, the acceptances, and the in-between. It’s just the way it is.
We are now getting ready to take off again - this time to ride from Alaska to Argentina. My boys totally understand the idea that some days aren’t wonderful, and will deal with it. As one of my sons wrote when we finished our last journey - “I liked the trip because there were more good days than bad.”
You can read about our journey at http://www.familyonbikes.org
I’ve been published and rejected. You really can’t take it too hard. I have a novel that was rejected enough times that I just shelved it and moved on. It needed to be written because it taught me how to write a novel. That was its point, not publication. I may have better luck with the current one.
I think we’re saying basically the same thing, just with differing definitions of the term “personal.”
When I say it’s personal, I mean that even though editos–myself included, when it was necessary–will often insist that “It’s not what we’re looking for” means just that, it should really be read as “You don’t write well enough to publish”–because that’s usually the truth. It’s not a judgment against the writer’s character, which seems to be what you’re getting at, but it is a judgment against the writer’s skills, which I would still define as personal.
I agree with your sentiment of “grow a set” (though as an outspoken male feminist I wouldn’t put it in so many words). In my other posts about writing I’ve spoken against the tendency of many writers to dwell on–nay, to enshrine their rejections or otherwise give them more attention than necessary.
My issue is that far too many writers use the “it’s not personal” sentiment as an excuse not to improve, to delude themselves that rejections have nothing to do with their actual writing ability but rather some ethereal, unkowable nuance of the market. They never improve and keep hypersaturating the slushpiles with the same illitarate crap–believe me, by the time I was done with the acquisitions scene I had a regular corral of repeat submitters just like this, of whom I swore I would eat my hat if they ever sent me anything above the quality of a fourth grade book report. Thanks to “it’s not personal” these people were able to convince themselves that they weren’t, as you say, broken; which they should have been, because their writing sure as hell was, and it just wasn’t improving, even a little.
Well, if the person on the receiving end of a form rejection still thinks that a stack the height of a couch is “not personal” and deluded enough to keep submitting the same unchanged manuscript, I have no pity for them. Even after improvements you’ll still get form rejections but when you start getting personal ones, then you know you’ve done something right. It’s those persistent idiots that muck up the pile for the rest of us. Persistence is good but being smart about it is much, much better.
I did fear that I’d end up only reiterating what you said in a much more gruff manner but eh, it needs to be said by as many level-headed people as possible. You just have to know when a form rejection stops being “not personal” and crosses over into “your writing sucks and you’ll keep getting these until you wise up and do some rewriting.”
Great post. I’m always amazed at the authors who blame agents, editors, or the publishing industry for not recognizing their genius. I’ve seen rants on author blogs I wouldn’t tolerate from my four-year-old, and some of the mail described on various agent blogs is truly stunning. The people who can’t handle the possibility that they’re simply not good enough — either because an over-inflated opinion of their own talent or because their friends and family aren’t honest about the quality of their writing (or have no ability to distinguish diamonds from dross themselves) — should self-publish, and not bother with the gatekeepers to the regular publishing industry.
If you’re unwilling to write books people want to pay money to buy, you shouldn’t ask publishers — whose corporate mission is to sell books to readers in exchange for money — to pay you for your writing. If you expect to get paid for your work, then you need to take the time and make the effort to learn how to write something that is both well-written and marketable.
Otherwise, keep believing that the editors and agents are too stupid to recognize your jewel of a novel and publish it yourself.
Sorry for the rant. Your irritation must be contagious.
Working as an assistant editor for a local magazine, I can tell you with great assurances that yes, the majority of what people submit is either illiterate garbage, completely inappropriate for our magazine’s subject matter, or… No, those two cover about 95% of the submissions. It’s quite sad what people who consider themselves professional writers will spew forth.
Your post made me laugh a little. I was not a gymnast, but a martial artist, and I have fought on sprained ankles and worse because giving up was not an option. No wonder I have never taken rejection personally.
I definitely resonate with the gymnastics analogy, as I trained in classical ballet. Are you bleeding? No? Put your pointe shoes back on. Oh wait, you are bleeding? Put them back on again anyway!
Then again, nothing toughens up the skin like an MFA program — I know there’s fierce debate on whether on not they have any value at all, and I can’t honestly say I have an opinion one way or another, but I will give them this: they make you tough.
Razib, my sentiments exactly. If anyone can do it, it saps the special from it.
Fam, it’s all about the ups and downs. Personally, I think life would be pretty damn dull without the downs since they make the ups that much better.
FH, good luck with the current novel!
Sam, I already replied to you!
Unfocused, ah yes! One rant inspires another. They’re like yawns. Once one person does it, it sets you off.
Laurie, I don’t envy you.
Kathleen, and if the rejection gets to be too much, you just kung pow the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Elrena, I’ve heard about the MFA programs and I actually have a really good article about them that I’ll comment on this blog eventually but it’s not a flattering piece. In so many words it claims that MFAs crank out pretentious writers that spew forth nothing but literary masturbation. While I agree with it to an extent, I think one would have a lot of learn in such a program. You just need to keep true to yourself and write how you want instead of writing how the professors are tailoring you to write.
“You’re getting the rejections because something is wrong with your work.”
I don’t understand why the above is so hard for writers to grasp.
Auria, I think it’s called delusional psychosis. Or Headuprectumitis.
As a football player, it took me a long time to make the team and I remember all kinds of drills like running till I barfed. I guess sometimes agressive physical sports can teach you a lot about life.
Or just persistence. You do something until it hurts and then push through until the pain goes away.
Never stop trying, that’s what counts. When you never stop trying and always try and get better and try to improve on the way, then you’re doing something good.
Wonderfully written post! I especially love the part about “are you broken?”
Every time I’ve received a rejection, I have tried to figure out what it was they didn’t like, what I can do to improve my chances of the next letter being an acceptance. If I do that, I know that I’m working to better myself. I hope I never get to the point where I think they’re just all overlooking my incredible talent!
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