Friday--The Writers' Porch--Wretched Rejection

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit."—Richard Bach.

One of the most difficult things we experience as a writer in process of publication is the rejection letter. One of the analogies of writing is that it is similar to having children. We labor over our words and we protect our creations. Then whammy—someone rejects it. We feel hurt personally. We become discouraged and want to quit writing. We wonder, “Why?”

The truth of publication is almost every writer experiences the “rejection letter.” Here’s my thoughts on the ominous rejection—rejoice. If you have received the “No” letter, then at least it means you have send out your baby for review. Here’s the choice— if you don’t send it out you’ll never be rejected, but you’ll never be published, either.

There are several reasons an editor sends a rejection letter for our precious manuscripts. The reason could have nothing to do with your writing. It might be the wrong type of project for the publisher, or perhaps they recently purchased something similar. Unfortunately, rejections usually do not include the reason for rejection, so we assume the worst—they didn’t like our baby. But wonder if they liked it, but just couldn’t publish it? There’s no way to know.

So, I suggest you send out the manuscript and give it wings to fly. Keep writing, in the meantime, with new ideas and projects. If you get a rejection letter, so what? Keep writing, collect the rejections and wallpaper the room where you write.

Don’t take rejection personally, use it as a springboard. Use it as part of the writing process and learn from it if you can, but don’t quit writing. Writers write, published writers submit and experience rejection. Remember, authors like John Grisham and Stephen King were rejected multiple times, but look at ‘em now. Perseverance in writing, submitting and publication is the key to a writer’s success.

Until Monday,