What do you do when you find out your manuscript is rejected?
Do any you have rejection rituals you go through when you get one of those big, fat NOs?
Edited to add – this question isn’t because I have just been rejected. I’m working on a talk where I want to speak about rejection and since I haven’t submitted anything new for a few years, I’m more distant than I used to be from the feeling. Of course if I hurry up and get the proposal done and to my agent I’m sure I’ll get to experience the feeling again very soon.
I love rituals, but I don’t have one for this. Mostly I just feel bad for a bit and then put the thing away.
Do you have any writing rituals?
If I were home writing all the time, sitting in my actual office (as opposed to in the library at home with the tv on and my laptop on my lap) I think I would have a candle lighting ritual before I began to write.
Not sure if it’s ritual exactly, but I do tell my writing group who oh-so-appropriately and wonderfully go on about how small-sighted the rejector was and how sorry they will be one day.
Find people who remind me of my worth — and you, Susan, are so so so worthy in so many ways. (just in case you wouldn’t mind hearing that right now)
Thanks Jeannie! I need to go back and edit my post. I was just curious about other people’s habits. I haven’t submitted anything for a few years so I have lost touch with that horrible feeling for the short term.
I’m working on a talk where they want me to speak a bit about rejection so I was interested in what other people might do.
I appreciate the kind words though. 😉
You didn’t really imply this. I guess I assume all writers go through rejections as part of our territory. But I did remember another “ritual” that’s important. I always try to have a backup editor to send the work to, and get it back in the mail within 24 hours. Unless there’s some useful criticism or I think there’s some rewriting that could be done. Once it’s back in the mail some of the sting lifts, and when I do report to my writing group, I try to come with “but it’s at x or y now.”
Not sure if it’s ritual exactly, but I do tell my writing group who oh-so-appropriately and wonderfully go on about how small-sighted the rejector was and how sorry they will be one day.
Me too! That! Exactly!
I forgot – I also have that “Pretty Woman” moment in my head when she goes shopping and the first store doesn’t want to wait on her and she goes back there and flaunts it to them with “Big mistake. Really big mistake.” That’s sorta my vision.
I feel pretty removed from my rejections since my agent handles them all so I don’t really know.
Even before, I just cried or got mad–didn’t have a ritual.
It’s odd, isn’t it (and I think in a good way) that distancing we get with our agents? I remember what a big deal it used to be to take the manuscript to the post office and get it weighed and the return mail envelope as well. 20 years ago at the little post office where I lived then they knew me well as I’d blast novels and short stories and articles out in the mail once a week.
Now anything I send is via email either to my agent or directly to an editor, except for one place.
I have no rituals. How it affects me depends partly on the kind of rejection and partly on my pre-existing emotional state. Nice, encouraging rejections often make me feel better rather than worse, though there is always that twinge of so-close-yet-so-far. If the rejection includes useful feedback, I will incorporate it. Once in a while, when I’m already vulnerable for other reasons, a rejection will depress me. At those times, commiserating with friends and looking through my acceptance file can help! But generally I just go right back to my writing, which is its own reward.
I recently spoke to a class and was asked to talk about revision and rejection. I brought in some rejection slips, ranging from the generic form letters to the nice personal notes, as well as some acceptance letters. There were several points to this: it’s a long hard road, you have to keep trying over and over, don’t take it personally, etc. The letters really made an impression on the students. And it was nice to find a use for those old slips!
(When I first started trying to publish, I used to save my rejection slips, but I don’t do that much any more unless they have some specific feedback or personal message.)
I’ve done away with saving my rejections too, unless they have personal feedback on them. But when I started out, yes, I saved everything. Of course I was submitting all over the place too – articles, short stories, books, fillers. I was so excited to be writing and submitted that I lacked focus. And I had no classes, no SCWBI, no mentor or writing friends for several years.
Some rejections hit me harder than others, that’s for sure.
I cuss.
LOL. Yes, I do that too. Followed by chocolate.
Oh yeah!
Rituals sting more with an agent, for me, since now I know the ms. is getting a good read from a well-targeted editor. So no more saying, “Well, maybe it never even got to her” or the other things I could kid myself with before.
My ritual is to go to my database and enter the rejection right away. It’s my “closure,” I guess. And then for 2-3 days I will find myself sighing in disappointment in the middle of working on other projects. Each time that happens, I force myself to visualize the book as it will be produced by whatever editor/publisher next has the ms (gotta keep hoping). And I eat a lot of Christmas cookies, apparently.