How do we do it? Is it a case of fortitude or is there some
technique? When I was a kid I was told to “develop a thick skin” if things
bothered me, an adult buzz term which was all very well but nobody ever said how.
We write our stories and offer them up to public scrutiny,
knowing perfectly well we may suffer a hundred rejections for every acceptance.
That’s 99 turn-downs, 99 instances of being passed over, the door closed, the
cold shoulder: we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel at times that, just
maybe, we’re not as good as we thought we were.
Coping with rejection is of course a professional skill. The
cartoon above was published 43 years ago, in David Gerrold’s The Story of One of Star Trek’s Most Popular
Episodes, The Trouble With Tribbles (Bantam, 1973). I have always thought
it so pertinent, the supplicant receiving his brainchild back on a toasting
fork, burnt black – the critical opinion of the powers that be who stand in
judgement over the creative output of the individual writer. You have to have
humour to survive, some of the time!
Electronic submission has truncated a process of weeks or
months into days or weeks – and who hasn’t had an overnight rejection? Or a
rejection in hours? Trying not to be cynical about it, or indeed angry, is a
mark of professionalism – I say try,
nobody is perfect. But professionalism must also be a process of placing a
rejection in perspective – there are entirely legitimate reasons for turning
down a submission, and they can grade to very fine levels of choice on the part
of a first-reader or editor. Often rejections have nothing to do with the
literary merit of a work and everything to do with business – it may be the
marketplace is virtually out of acquisition budget this week and can afford to
buy something 4000 words long – not the 6000 yours was. Or they bought
something on a similar theme last week and simply can’t buy another and
stockpile it until long enough has elapsed they can reasonably revisit the
theme. To do so may also not be fair to the writer, who might (just perhaps)
see their work in print much sooner elsewhere. And if the rejection is on
literary grounds, the opinion remains subjective and the next marketplace may
feel differently. Probably very few
stories are bought on their first submission (while, oddly enough, at least
some seem to be shortlisted on them…).
Whatever the reason, one is left to beard the rejection
dragon in its cave on an ongoing basis. In the age of online submission and
immediate communication, every time we log into emails we face the prospect of
a rejection. I check messages two or three times a day, often I have my email
program open in the background, so the 99% probability of being turned away is always in play. It preys on the mind to
some extent, the anxiety of looking to see what has been turned down by whom
today. I don’t get rejections everyday but my worst day was four – hard, for
sure, and it’s happened more than once. The opposite also holds true, though –
when an acceptance comes in, the charge lasts all day and an enthusiasm to see
what happens tomorrow is very much in play.
But there is always another story on the go, another
inspiration, another chance to refine the craft of writing, and hopefully turn
out a gem which this time might
please first-readers and editor too. So out it goes, fingers are crossed, and
one waits for the cycle to play out. Is the piece matched properly to
marketplace requirements? Check the boxes…
Length, correct; subject matter, yes; age-group orientation, fine; now is your
style quite what this marketplace prefers? Does your take or twist “work” for
the first-reader, or does it do exactly the opposite? Did the first-readers
like it but the editor not? A tapestry of variables comes into play and the writer
must be aware that when every marketplace is snowed under with submissions from
writers all aspiring to be professionals, any
reason is good enough to pass on anything.
Fatalism is perhaps the key, not a morbid negativity but an
understanding of the vagaries of the industry and enough humility to allow that
one’s style may indeed rub others the wrong way, while both your style and the first
reader’s expectations each remain perfectly defensible. Some markets may simply
be impenetrable and will stay that way because your output is ill-suited to the
formula they have found works for them artistically and at a commercial level.
It doesn’t mean you write bad stories but it does mean they’ll be published somewhere else.
Allowing that one has reached a certain level of
proficiency, it comes down to business: marketplaces are in the business of
selling magazines, writers are in the business of selling stories, neither can
succeed without the other but the negotiation between them is an often-lethal
mating dance in which the writer’s aspirations are rewarded a minute fraction
of the time. We may not like it, but it is the way the world works and the
regimen we are obliged to learn.
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