It may seem like a less than manifested reaction on my part, but whenever I do read something that sparks random reminders of the rejection letters or mixed book reviews I’ve been on the receiving end of, I search out resources with quotations from authors who were themselves rejected. Over the years, I’ve found a surplus of both outrageous & hilarious responses from publishers.
Yet among the current writers posting on various social media platforms, I still see as much handwringing as I do acceptance of the inevitable. Some who are relatively new to the world of writing or its shadow world of rejection often lament their chosen course of action or their strategies for finding the right fit for their novel, novella, short story, poem, what have you.
Others, perhaps more jaded, respond with a diplomatic version of “Meh, another rejection letter/email to frame on my wall.”
Of course, it seems that every such pragmatic, philosophical comment spawns at least one salt-in-the-wound post titled something along the lines of “I Queried 20 Agents and Publishers and Got Five Offers for My Debut Novel in ONE Week.”
Fortunately, all it takes for me to come to my senses is to read a couple letters to others modeled on a version of the typical ”thanks, but this isn’t for us” or the stats on the number of rejections received by, oh I don’t know, say, George Orwell, Maya Angelou, Ray Bradbury, or Steven King, & my perspective is treated to a welcome realignment the likes of which I doubt I could accomplish on my own.
To be clear, I would never compare my writing to any of the authors mentioned above, but if those heavyweights & others have survived a similar Fire Swamp of Rejection, then it’s up to me to keep my own situation in perspective.
And that’s exactly what I try to do. For now, I write, I read, I post; in a few months, maybe that ripoff of Julius Caesar’s infamous line will change to I write, I query, I wait.
One example from my archives of rejection letters that’s I’m closing with was sent to the agent of an author whose novel I frequently cite as one of my all-time favorites. As happens with a handful of stories I’ve read at crucial phases of my writing life, I’m fairly certain I won’t ever read The Left Hand of Darkness again in order to keep its timely impact from shattering into cosmic dust.
As I read the letter below out loud just now, I marveled at how a professional editor could have had such a diametrically opposed reaction to the one my sixteen-year-old self had to what would later be considered a transformative novel.
