I’ve had a few people ask me how I feel when I get rejection slips in the mail for my writing. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me much.
Well, sometimes it can.
This one was the first: a good ‘stock rejection’, non-personalised (well, I suppose it counts as personal if the title is tacked on in biro). At the time – this was, I think, early 2003 – I was gutted. Now in retrospect they did me a favour, for the manuscript needs a rewrite and a completely new subplot.
It’s from TOR – one of THE publishing ‘homes’ for a Science Fiction or Fantasy author. Frankly, I don’t remember what I was thinking submitting it in the first place.
Most rejections don’t even get this much; most of my rejections are stone silence. You wait the allotted 12 week or so waiting time to pass…and pass. You might even send a reminder letter. That might get responded to, or not. Who knows? Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Then when you do get a call of acceptance, it’s wonderful. You punch the air and the room suddenly gets smaller from the blow-up effect on your ego.
So my advice to any writers out there (and you know who you are, who’ve written to me saying, “I’ve never told anyone this, but…” or “I don’t know how you can do it!”) when you get those rejection letters is this: take a copy. Keep the original, but burn the other or rip it to shreds. Be defiant in your self. If you’ve been lucky to get some constructive criticism listen to it – I’ll write more about that in the weeks to come.
Questions? Thoughts? Ask away!
