Handling Rejection

In my recent article about marketing stories, there was a section at the end that described momentum, and how it applies to your work. I got so much mail about it I decided it needed a bit more clarification, and I had planned to write about handling rejection anyway. These two topics go hand in hand. So here's a hand!

Simple truth: If you submit work for publication, you're going to get rejected. That's it. Period.

Rejection doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't even mean you're a bad writer. It doesn't mean you'll never get anywhere (unless you quit writing because of it). It's just the nature of what we do. We crank the raw stuff out of our hearts and heads and hope it'll find a home. Sometimes it does.

Sometimes - for some writers, more often than not - it doesn't.

For the first five years of my career, the ratio was one in three. For every three stories I wrote, one would get published. The other two would bounce from market to market - at least a half dozen markets each - before I finally decided they were permanently broken and retired them.

On the surface, 33% does not appear to be a particularly impressive success rate. Fortunately, a lot of things are happening below the surface that make this a better statistic than it sounds - provided you can find a way to step past the potentially negative psychological effect of all those people saying no.

This simple system takes the sting out of rejection, and helps you to understand that it's nothing personal. It involves two related concepts: momentum and numbers.

Momentum. As defined by Merriam Webster, momentum is the "strength or force gained by motion or through the development of events." Consistent forward action creates an amplifying effect that helps push you when the going gets rough - as it sometimes does when you get five or six rejections in a row.

To create momentum in your own work, remember this simple formula: one in your head, one in draft, one in rewrite, one in the mail. If you stick to this formula, it won't be long until you have a backlog of stories ready to submit. If you have three new ideas you're excited to write about, two stories you're working on right now, three cooling off waiting for rewrites and five submitted, can you see how you'll be somewhat less concerned when two or three of your stories are rejected? You'll be too busy to worry about it!

I've had emails from writers who experienced difficulty building momentum. They did well for awhile, wrote a bunch of stories, then ran out of ideas. The well dried up, they said. Now what?

I said what I always say: keep writing. Your mind is a well that never dries up. There are always more words. If you're having a dry spell, that's all the more reason to pick up the pen. So you don't feel inspired? The words that come don't seem like good words? Stop working on stories for a few days. Just write in your journal. No editing necessary. Total freedom of expression. Freewrite. Ramble inside your own head. Release your true expression. A new story will come.

Numbers. You've probably heard the term "it's a numbers game." If not, here's what it means for you: the more stories you have in the mail, the better your chances of an acceptance.

If you have submitted one story, the entire weight of your publishing success rests on that one story. Seen as straight odds, it's 50-50. That leaves a lot riding on one little story. Better to have a decent points spread, with three, four or even five stories out there, each with at least three ideal markets selected.

You may be thinking that seeing this as a numbers game is a bit crazy. This is a very subjective business, after all. Aren't you at the mercy of an editor's opinion? As an editor, I can tell you I've read plenty of stories that were good - even publishable - but not right for my magazine. The writers had done their homework, submitted a story that they thought would be appropriate for the magazine, but it just didn't move me. As a writer, I've been on the other side of that transaction dozens of times.

It isn't straight odds and never has been, but the subjective elements are completely outside your control. You can't do anyting about them. So don't even think about them. if you allow yourself to think you can actually write for a specific market, you'll spend all your time trying to write an editor's stories instead of your own. Do yourself a huge favor. Write stories for yourself - stories that you are passionate about - and play the odds. It works a lot better than trying to write what you think the market wants. In the words of William Goldman: "Nobody knows anything." That's the business.

It may take you awhile to start selling. Remember what I said earlier about how that 33% statistic isn't as bad as it looks? That's because momentum is also at work in another vital aspect of your writing life: your writing itself.

The more you write, the more you improve. Your writing gets better, word by word, day by day, story by story. You learn more and more about your craft as you work. That's your education. No degree program in the world can match the exponential improvements you'll enjoy through writing every day.

Your business is to write the stories you want to write and get them out there. Using momentum and treating the process as a numbers game, you'll grow and improve as a writer. And you'll have plenty of stories to submit.

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