Rejection and Criticism

I’ve had experience with rejection, harsh critiques and lost contests…years and years of it. When I send out a short story, I know odds are it will be rejected. I’ve sold, maybe, ten percent of the short stories I’ve sent out. But I tell myself the market for short stories like I write is small with few chances of success and that’s just the business.

Poetry is just as hard and paying markets are slim. As the economy goes on the way it is publishing house have to be more choosy and getting a book published is ever more competitive. Contest judges try to encourage and help and to do that it means sometimes being tough.

I’ve learned to like tough. Those critics and contests judges are being generous with their precious time and I have to at least listen with my heart open or I lose.

But a writer keeps writing and hoping. That novel is yours, came from your open heart, your one-of-a-kind heart. It feels like sending a child away to college when you sent it out, whether for publication or contest or to a critic partner. Inevitably you will get harsh critiques or rejections. A ‘thanks, but no thanks’, a ‘it didn’t work for them.’

Remember: You will not die. Then, find a way to distance yourself, however long it takes, so you can go back and read suggestions, criticisms, emotionless, if you were lucky enough to get them. Determine to learn something.

First remember, you didn’t write it for them. They didn’t see what you envisioned. Then, remember, critics can be wrong. Look honestly and deeply into your heart and trust your gut, as Obi Won told Luke: feel the force. Only you know what you’re trying to say. Did you say what you wanted to clearly or do they have a point that you can see now that there is distance and the very real thought that someone else actually read it.

I try to remember that my happiness will never depend on being published, neither will my wealth. Writing rarely leads to mansions on a hill and sports cars.
Are the editors/judges/critics saying the same thing about your book? Do they echo what someone else has said? You’ve got to take a second look, then. Or at least look at what they said in common.

Each page we perfect moves us farther along in our journey, giving us miles under our belt. Experience and learned tools. This is good.