Everybody Hurts
Misery loves company, doesn’t it? Well if you’ve had your work rejected, then you’re in the company of Bret Easton Ellis, Wally Lamb and Amy Tan. Writer Catherine Wald has edited the book The Resilient Writer: Tales of Rejection and Triumph from 23 Top Authors, and has some thoughts on what she learned about rejection during the book’s genesis:
As a self-proclaimed ‘rejexpert,’ I have been a freelance writer for more than 20 years. I decided to write a book about rejection when my first novel was turned down by every major publisher in the civilized Western world. My agent was highly regarded, and everyone had told me that it’s harder to get an agent than it is to get a publisher – so I really had my hopes up. Anyway, the rejection process took two and a half long years. When the last rejection letter came in, I ran out of creative steam. Not only was I confused, but I was paralyzed. The only way I could think of to deal with these feelings was to write about them. As a result, I ended up creating The Resilient Writer (which, by the way, was rejected several times before it was published.)
Three of the most important things I learned while writing the book are:
Rejection Never Ends: Even well-published authors are not immune. Rejection is part of the writer’s life, so we may as well start collecting those slips as soon as possible!
Failure can be energizing. It can galvanize you to improve your writing, venture into new territory, reach out more directly to your audience or seek support from the writing community.
Persistence really can pay off. Two of the famous authors I interviewed were once rejected by every MFA program in the country. Another wrote three novels before his fourth was finally published.
I also heard many stories about authors who persisted in the face of the most blistering of rejections. Arthur Golden turned an emphatically rejected draft into the universally acclaimed Memoirs of A Geisha by rewriting literally hundreds of pages. Kathryn Harrison turned scathing, vicious attacks on her memoir, The Kiss, into a newfound artistic freedom and confidence. Chris Bohjalian opened 250 rejection letters before he sold his first short story. He also survived a withering put-down by a visiting professor in college. And E. Lynn Harris published and hawked his own first novel; now each of his books is a huge best seller.
My own advice for struggling writers is, never give up! Remember, writing is something you can just as easily use to add joy to your life as you can to make yourself miserable. Throw yourself into your work and market it with all the resources at your disposal. Then let the chips fall where they may – and move on to your next project.
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