On rejection

Sundry / writing

Rejections make you stronger; rejections build character; so-and-so writers (who later become obscenely successful) happily collected rejection slips… Advice columns on why one should befriend, love and cherish rejections are a dime a dozen these days. So much so that it feels rather trite to add my own two bits on the subject; but well, every writer’s experiences are different and reading about them have helped me immensely, so I reckon this may be worth putting out. It stands, too, as timely advice to myself as I enter a transitional phase in my life in which I plan to take stock of my writing and encourage myself to, among other things, ease back into regular lit-mag submissions (and of course, rejections).

But first, before we launch into why it is actually a good idea to love and cherish rejections, let’s be frank: rejections hurt; sometimes, they hurt a lot. Sure, the enlightened artists among us have taught themselves not to take them seriously – art, after all, is subjective and maybe it just wasn’t a good fit for them, but of course it will find a home somewhere else – but for the less grey-and-wise, rejection tends to feel incredibly personal. Maybe your piece was intensely personal, difficult to write and it was a big deal to send it out at all. Or maybe you spent so long crafting it lovingly that you felt assured of success. Or maybe you wrote with a specific publication in mind, only to have them take a hard pass. Or worse: perhaps you simply never heard back and realized only while typing your fourth polite chaser that no response would be forthcoming. Whatever be the reason, receiving a rejection in your inbox can feel like a body blow. It’s not just the piece they’ve rejected, you say, indulging yourself tearfully in that moment: it’s your subject matter, your writing style, your unique voice; but also your face, your brain, your very personality. We’ve all been there when we started out, and despite being – or should-be-being – well on the way to becoming enlightened through a long writing practice, it is still a body blow on occasion.

And that’s all right. Not everyone is built to immediately brush off rejection or, as some artists can lately be seen espousing, to out-and-out celebrate it. People who only boast about collecting rejections to demonstrate their obsession with personal growth and learnings and the value of failure need to remember those ‘I can’t believe they could say no to this pretty face’ moments.

I’ve been lucky to have had a fairly good relationship with rejections. After a burst of legal writing and publication at college, I turned to short story writing on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The first story I wrote with publication in mind did indeed get accepted not long after it was written. Elated, I forgot all about legal writing and turned my attention solely to fiction, collecting a few publications in my languorous last year as a student. These early successes instilled in me a youthful belief that I could write seriously, and also took the edge off the rejections that inevitably followed. And of course, those were several in number.

After realizing that facing rejection was an inherent part of the process of trying to be a writer – helped along by reading some fine books on writing, Becoming a Writer being an old favourite – I began to embrace it. So much so that I wrote on the whiteboard in my hostel room, something pretentious that went like: If you’re not getting a rejection every few days, you’re not writing enough. It was propped up next to my desk, there for all to see, and (expectation) admire the genius at work they were privileged to witness, but (reality) cackle about in that maddening way of fellow 22-year-olds. How perfectly embarrassing, but classic behaviour from all involved.

Some rejections – the more impersonal or auto-generated ones – were indeed easy to move past; but in spite of my beginning to grow as a writer, others hit hard for how precise and memorable they were. The following, more than most, for it termed the very stories that my friends and family seemed to enjoy so much:

‘…prone to O Henry type twists that don't work for most editors ese days. Stories need to have more layers… Basically, (we) need more convoluted stuff. This is usual fare.’

To recast a meme I saw recently, was I not my grandma’s special boy to these people???

Yes, rejections, even the impersonal ones, contribute significantly to your growth – disproportionately, I might add, when compared to acceptances. But that does not mean that one can’t or shouldn’t sit with the hollow feeling that sometimes comes with rejection(s) for a while, perhaps a long while, before moving on to other pieces, other submissions. One can be forgiven for wanting to dissect a rejection, brood over it, talk to loved ones, reach out to other writers for support and sympathy, and ponder whether any drastic action is required – by which I mean something of the nature of a review of the form or direction of one’s work, not trolling (or worse) the offending editor.

Rejections do hurt, and it is okay to make peace with that, even as you start teaching yourself to befriend them and grow as a writer. You can take your time to learn that the often agonizingly slow process of submission, rejection and repeat, helps you develop several important traits that you will need in order to survive as a writer – stamina, endurance, resilience, and grace and good humour even in the face of continued adversity. When you begin to write, and if you take; rather, allow yourself to take, your craft seriously – and that is a fine but crucial difference, because to take yourself seriously as a writer requires a queer blend of enthusiasm, unselfconsciousness (even arrogance), but also a healthy dose of self-doubt and skepticism, and I hold that this raging cauldron of feelings separates the serious writer from the many charlatans who are much quicker to proclaim themselves so – you will learn, as I did, to appreciate rejection as an inalienable part of the very long but ultimately rewarding process that constitutes a life’s work at writing.

Some rejections, of course, are better than others. About three years after receiving the email extracted above, I received the following note from a publication that remains (and might forever remain) aspirational – it is one I still turn to from time to time to remind myself that this is a great thing that I am attempting, whether or not I ultimately achieve much visible success:

So – at the risk of mimicking hundreds of posts out there, but in my own words – do embrace the trepidation, thrill, fear, anxiety, warmth and joy that accompanies working hard at creating the best art that you can, and yes, putting it out there for others to consume and respond to. There will be downs, and it’s okay to moon over them, but – allow yourself to take yourself seriously and do carry on, for the ups will follow too.

If you are a writer or other artist, I’d love to hear the stories behind your ‘favourite’ rejections – leave a comment or send me a message and fire away!