Ashlinn,

I think your reaction to rejection shows, quite simply, that you care about your writing - and that, as well as not giving up, talent and determination, I think, tips the odds in your favour.

I think whenever you get a rejection it's important to accept that it was not neccessarily because the piece of writing was not good enough. Publishers, editors and agents are busy people, and don't have time to tell us WHY they've delcined our work, and that doesn't help, but they're human beings too - people who, for the same reasons as us, simply might not like a piece, opr might not think that it fits what they want.

Who was it that said a professional writer is an amateur writer who didn't give up?

Keep at it.

Nik, hoping he's made sense and not patronised anybody!

Emma, I'm so pleased to see that about Hilary Johnson. My ms is with a publisher at the moment but, if that doesn’t come off, I'm planning to send it to her.

On the day I've had a rejection I don't try to write at all,

It has the opposite effect on me. I think ‘sod it you bastards, you don’t know what you're missing’ and I write like fury. It’s probably crap but it makes me feel good. I won’t let them get to me. They do, of course. I lie awake wondering what I'm doing wrong, but while I'm writing I feel as if I'm moving forward.

Dee

Like you, Ashlinn, and others here, I also find rejection really tough. I'm completely unable to prevent the 'inner critic' from whispering in my ear: 'See! I told you shouldn't have bothered!'
But I do find positive rejections much better to handle. It's very interesting to hear such a different view about this. It makes me think, 'OK, I'm just not there yet.'
Don't know if I've banged on about this before, but one agent who was looking at the whole manuscript actually contacted me to say she was about to read it and was very excited because her reader loved it, and 'I never disagree with her so you can expect the best'.
Ha! But she did disagree, as it turned out! And what's more, I had to chase her to find out. That one almost finished me off. But I do think that while we may never get the rhino skin, we have to go with that whole 'time heals' malarky. A bit of distance really does seem to help.

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BTW, if anyone wants to know who that agent was, I'd be happy to tell them in an email. Doesn't feel right to slag her off, although I do think she was very unprofessional. She said she'd like to read the next thing I wrote, but I'm not going back!

I just keep telling myself, "It'll all be worth it in the end!"

Whenever I ask myself, Why am I putting myself through this? There's only ever one answer: It's what I do and I bloody love doing it.

You can't win 'em all!

Nik.

Dee, I wish I'd had the steam to post some of what Hilary Johnson said at the time. It was at the fantastic Historical Novel Society Conference a couple of weeks ago, and she had so much to say that was worth listening to. She even had a sheet about her view (which she acknowledged wasn't the only one) about how to write a synopsis. I was also very impressed by how, while she's definitely focussed on what the market wants, and how-to-get-published, she absolutely knows that even people who never will be published write things of value, if only to themselves, that may have cost them dear, and she respects that. She also respects the serious people who want blow-by-blow practical advice. I sat next to someone who'd had her work done over by HJ and said it was fantastic, and that novel's now being published.

I asked HJ about her view of the recent increase in MA-produced work, and she felt they were very samey, but she acknowledged that the standard and style of course varies hugely, and that much of her experience comes from earlier days and American courses, where she felt they were teaching them extremely rigidly, and she could spot one of their products a mile off.

I also felt that she is just a very nice person, which must have something to do with how helpful people find her.

Emma

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I wish I'd got hold of her synopsis-sheet, but I got collared by the author of the new Heyer bio and about three other people, and HJ'd gone by the time I escaped.

Caroline, yes, having said detailed rejections are harder, it's detailed rejections that have kept me going all these years, to the stage I am now. Your agent sounds like the classic example of agents who hate giving bad news and therefore don't. I had a bad one of those - great enthusiasm, lots of work, let-down - earlier this year. Awful, you have my sympathy. I wonder if they so have to cultivate a bouncy, up-beat 'it's the best thing I've ever read' attitude to sell stuff, that they don't realise it's not helpful in other directions, like the author's. (In fact, I know they have to cultivate that attitude. A friend of mine was a theatrical agent for some years, and in the end she just ran out of fuel for sounding like that, and retrained as a sports masseur.)

When my current agent emailed to asked to see the whole thing, she said, 'with the proviso that I think one of the voices may need some work.' Which was good, because I knew exactly where I was with her, and didn't hope more than was safe.

Emma

Ashlinn mentioned not sleeping very well after a rejection. For me it has the opposite effect, or has had in the past. I once slept through a whole weekend on the sofa in a state of lethargic depression. I couldn't bring myself to do anything. My wife just left me to it. Then I got up and started writing something new. I think I had been processing the rejection in my sleep and somehow had got it out of my system. I still react that way now, but to a lesser extent.

This kind of support is another of the benefits of involvement in this site. Thanks, guys, for the words of solidarity (and not in the least little bit patronising, Nik, just kind). I suppose my problem is that I find it hard to not to take rejection personally. Writing is such a personal thing that it's hard to separate yourself from what you've written. The nice but no thanks rejections remind me of the 'I'm sure you'll make some man very happy one day but just not me' kind of rejection.
I do think though that it's important to remember that it's a two-stage process, the writing and the submitting and not to approach the two with the same frame of mind. And it is a numbers game in the sense that everyone's work will appeal to someone out there but what the market wants is work that appeals to a number of people in excess of a certain breakeven cost of production.

Ashlinn

Know what you mean, Ashlinn, about how it goes to the heart of you.
Thanks Emma, for the sympathy. I'm over it now, (honestly!) but the really unnecessary part was her contacting me to say it. There was no earthly reason to do that and if she hadn't, it would have been an ordinary rejection.
Anyway, all over now, and I suppose it all helps to toughen us up. Doesn't it?

I don't know about toughen up, exactly, but I have got better at knowing - even in the throes - that it won't feel like that for ever.

This has been an encouraging post to read for me. Nice to read that others have got the rejection blues, too. The last five stories I've sent out have been rejected and I'm feeling very shaky at the minute as I don't really know how they differ from the ones that have sold. My way of coping with it is just to start another story right away. I tell myself it's a wake up call and perhaps I need to buck myself up, but it's very depressing. I certainly never think that I'll never publish again because that's too frightening a thought to contemplate.

I think when you start writing and you gradually have some success you think it can only go one way from now now on - up. But for most of us it's not like that. Two steps forward and one back usually. if you can just come to terms with that then you take the successes in exactly the same way as the turn downs. Just keep at it and you'll have some success if you persevere. Course, luck and talent are always a help.

Jem,

I would love to get something published as I would feel that it is some kind of acknowledgement of my writing but your posting makes me realise that this feeling may be part and parcel of writing even after you get some success. Maybe even people like Margaret Atwood or Ian McEwan fear what the reaction will be to their next novels.
Did you submit the latest stories to the same editors who had accepted other stories previously? If so, could they give you any explanation as to what was different? I know how frustrating it is not to be able to put your finger on what's not working.

Ashlinn

Very occasionally, on good days, I think: 'How brave I am' and give myself a little pat on the back. This goes for all of us. Most people go through life without ever really trying to make their dreams come true. They don't want to risk the pain involved in failing and I know it stopped me from taking my writing ambitions seriously for years. Then it struck me one day that I'd never know if I didn't try.
So to everyone who reads this, I say, stand tall and be proud of yourself. Whether you've already got somewhere, like Emma, or just trying to get there, like me, we're all giving it a shot, aren't we? And we're all braver than most people.

Sorry if that turned into a bit of a sermon!

Caroline, thank you, we all need reminding of that one. I remember a workshop where the first thing the tutor (I think it was Mary Flanagan) said was, 'first of all, to any of you who've ever worked something until you thought it was finished: Congratulations. Especially if it was a novel. That's an achievement in itself.'

I was feeling extremely pissed off and failure-ish, because I'd recently had a row of rejections, and that really helped. Being published is such a chancy business - such an incalculable mixture of personal taste and market forces - and yet so many of us persist in seeing it as the only goal for what we do, and not thinking well of ourselves and our work unless we reach it.

I've said it before on WW and elsewhere, but I'll say it again: as writers what we long for is communication, and I wish there were more ways than commercial publication that allowed us to do that.

Emma

I used to hate rejection, and let's face it, nobody enjoys it. But I agree with the quote below.

Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work. James Lee Burke

More often than not, a book grows to its publishable form on the back of a load of rejection. It is a necessary part of the art of a writer, a baptism of fire wherein the simply good can become mindblowing excellent.

JB