There’s a hashtag trending on Twitter right now called #ShareYourRejections. (#ShareYourRejection catches some leftovers.) I really love it. I love when the writing community focuses on real talk–the things we need to know as writers–rather than the shiny polished side. It’s even blossomed beyond writing to include rejections in other industries and even just in life. Most of them are positive, skewed toward eventual success stories, because that’s what’s motivating, although some are funny and a few are just sad. It doesn’t matter. To me, what matters is that people are openly talking about their failures.
I love failures. (Admittedly not usually at the time.) Mine, other people’s: it’s just such an amazing way to grow and learn. Every time I botch something, it’s an opportunity to step back and ask myself why and how I botched it. Can I fix it? Can I avoid doing the same thing again? Usually the answer to one or both of those is yes, and that’s gold.
Go to any writers conference and sit in on some panels, and you’re practically guaranteed to hear some form of this question:
How long should I keep trying to get published? How many rejections before I should quit? When should I trunk my story? How many times should I submit a story before I give up? When should I stop sending my story out on submission?
In the interest of taking a crack at answering it, I’m going to share my own rejections. On a favorite.
My short story “So Sings the Siren” was rejected by 17 markets before it was accepted by Apex Magazine.
It went on to become a Bram Stoker Award Finalist—a literal dream come true—open the Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3—a dream I hadn’t even dared to dream yet—be reprinted and audio produced more than once, and—perhaps most touchingly to me—has made more than one (more than one!) complete strangers’ personal lists of ALL TIME favorite short stories. I’ve received more praise and positive reviews for that little story than any other I’ve published so far. Obviously, a lot of people have really loved it.
But it was only the 18th market I sent it to that found it worth publishing. (For the record, that order is not a reflection of my ‘ranking’ of Apex or any of the other markets; it had more to do with what was taken up where and a constant rotation of pieces and markets. Apex was a huge bucket-list top-five win for me.)
Here are just a few of the things rejecting editors said about “So Sings the Siren”:
- the story just didn’t cover enough new ground
- misses an opportunity to be exceptional
- didn’t do enough with itself
- this didn’t stand out
- more heart
More heart? That story is my heart. And yes, for those not in the field or new to the field, these things do hurt. They should. That’s okay.
Because you know what? Those editors were all right! So were the readers and reviewers who didn’t like it once it came out. Because all they have is their one opinion, and you can’t argue with an opinion. It’s literally just what that one person thinks. All you can do with an opinion that isn’t the one you want is consider it, accept or dismiss it, and move on.
I’m not saying the way I do it is right, but here’s the way I do it: I decide, once and only once, if I believe in the thing I wrote. If the answer is yes, I never give up on it. It’s that simple, and that hard. I might revise it, set it aside to come back to, knock it down a tier, whatever—but if I believe in it, I don’t quit until it’s out there. Even if it takes 18, 25, 50, or ??? rejections before that happens.
By the way, I don’t give up on markets, either. I sent Apex Magazine 10 different stories before they bought “So Sings the Siren.” I’ve sent them 1 after. (Nope, getting one story published doesn’t mean you’re automatically in for the next.) I will almost certainly send them more in the future, because they kick a lot of ass and I loved working with them.
But I don’t give up on stories I believe in, so 6 of those 11 rejected by Apex have since been accepted elsewhere—a few already published to wonderful reviews and reactions of their own. 🙂
So much of submission is luck and click and fit. There are countless big and small factors that go into acceptance versus rejection, and most of them you can’t control. So you do your best on the parts you can control (quality, work ethic, content, persistence, professionalism, etc.) and hope for the stars to align. Some of my very best stories still haven’t been accepted anywhere. (Some of my less-than-favorites got picked up right away.) That’s okay. Just don’t give up.
I’m serious, don’t give up. I’ve had a few writers see my list of published work and ask me how I’ve done it. As long as that sucker may look now, it’s taken me ten years of hard work to build it up. In those ten years, I’ve also built up a submission chart file that’s 80 PAGES LONG. (It has poems, stories, novels, queries, contests, and more.) Most of the cells are shaded red, not green. And there are stories with far more rejections than 17 that are still going out on submission. A different story that just got accepted at a different wish-list market (I can’t announce yet) was rejected 46 times first. I didn’t stop sending it out because I believe in it.
And of course, “So Sings the Siren” is one of my happiest submission tales. I have a dozen stories that have yet to find homes at all. I’ve had plenty of other stories published that didn’t get much or any fanfare. But I don’t know which ones will reach which people until I get them out there, do I?
If I’d given up on “So Sings the Siren” after my first five or ten or fifteen rejections, I might’ve spared myself some inconvenience, some brief hurt, some negative reactions. But I also wouldn’t have found so many readers for whom my words do hit home, do resonate, do mean something. I wouldn’t have cracked a bucket-list market or made my first ‘best of’ anthology. I wouldn’t have a Bram Stoker Award Finalist certificate hanging on my office wall, reminding me why I don’t give up. And I might not be here oversharing with you so that, hopefully, other writers can see my numbers and take heart too. We all fail. It’s just part of the process. It’s not permanent unless you quit.
So don’t quit.
♥
Writers, feel free to share your own rejection stories below—uplifting or otherwise. All experiences are welcome here. And if you need more, definitely go snoop the hashtag #ShareYourRejections. You are not alone.
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