First Class Rejection For $58

I've told the story before, even on this site, regarding how my first novel, Cloudburst, received 139 rejections before landing an agent at Curtis Brown who promptly sold it to William Morrow and Avon.

I was wrong.

It was over 200 rejections.

 

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It's hard to tell from this picture, but that stack is six inches high. I saved EVERY rejection, the good, the bad, the mean, and the funny. And if I'd realized that I'd discarded some envelopes and tucked the gems into others, I might have counted more carefully, because those 139 envelopes contained 200 receipts for my rejection.

The year was 1991. Stamps were 29 cents. Doing the math I see that I paid other people more than $58 to tell me in various ways that I sucked using the Self Addresses Stamped Envelopes I always included with my query letters and proposals. Some were generous enough to pay themselves (see large envelopes in picture) to return the sample chapters they'd requested...along with notes telling me I sucked.

Now, to be fair, there were many encouraging rejections. Many form rejections. Many harsh rejections. But in my mind they all said one thing...say it with me now... You Suck!

And that's okay. Because after about the first twenty, the sting pretty much had lost its effect. And, really, I knew I didn't suck.

So why do I keep all these reminder of all these opinions from so many years ago? Mostly it reminds me how wrong people can be, and that you'd better believe in yourself if you're giving others the opportunity not to.