Thoughts on Rejections
Rejections, I’ve had a few -- no, make that several. The secret is to be persistent and send your writing out into the wide world.
I started out writing (probably terrible) novels. I’d finish one, send it away to a famous publisher, and start another while I was waiting to hear back. I actually had one manuscript held by a publisher for a couple of years before they decided to reject it. In the meanwhile I was gathering dozens of rejection letters. If there was a comment rather than a form letter, I was thrilled.
This was back in the day when you printed off an entire manuscript and mailed it away with sufficient return postage.
I was also working full time so I was busy!
While I was waiting I entered a national short story contest, which I won first place, and sent out dozens of short stories to anthologies. Most came back with form letters, but one editor was kind enough to comment, twice, that: “this story sounds like it should be a novel." I was persistent, and finally I heard back from an editor who was compiling a collection of shorts into book form. She told me she “almost” accepted one of the two short stories I submitted, but it got bumped by a late arrival that fit that particular theme better. The good news was she was next compiling a modern vampire collection and one of the two stories I’d sent her was about vampires. Would I be interesting in submitting to the new collection? I said YES, and it was accepted. I was in print and in paperback and hardcover!
The moral to all this rambling is that you will never be published if you don’t send your material out. One benefit to me of all the above early aggravation was that when I finally sat down across from a receptive publisher, who asked, “What have you done so far?” I could point to the short story win, and to my story in the recent anthology.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard, was from a successful writer, who told a beginner to write a short story a week, and send it out. If it comes back rejected, look it over, and send it out again. If nothing else, your writing will certainly improve over the next year or two, and you may even become published.
If that sounds like a lot of work, it probably is. How badly would you like to be published?
I started out writing (probably terrible) novels. I’d finish one, send it away to a famous publisher, and start another while I was waiting to hear back. I actually had one manuscript held by a publisher for a couple of years before they decided to reject it. In the meanwhile I was gathering dozens of rejection letters. If there was a comment rather than a form letter, I was thrilled.
This was back in the day when you printed off an entire manuscript and mailed it away with sufficient return postage.
I was also working full time so I was busy!
While I was waiting I entered a national short story contest, which I won first place, and sent out dozens of short stories to anthologies. Most came back with form letters, but one editor was kind enough to comment, twice, that: “this story sounds like it should be a novel." I was persistent, and finally I heard back from an editor who was compiling a collection of shorts into book form. She told me she “almost” accepted one of the two short stories I submitted, but it got bumped by a late arrival that fit that particular theme better. The good news was she was next compiling a modern vampire collection and one of the two stories I’d sent her was about vampires. Would I be interesting in submitting to the new collection? I said YES, and it was accepted. I was in print and in paperback and hardcover!
The moral to all this rambling is that you will never be published if you don’t send your material out. One benefit to me of all the above early aggravation was that when I finally sat down across from a receptive publisher, who asked, “What have you done so far?” I could point to the short story win, and to my story in the recent anthology.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard, was from a successful writer, who told a beginner to write a short story a week, and send it out. If it comes back rejected, look it over, and send it out again. If nothing else, your writing will certainly improve over the next year or two, and you may even become published.
If that sounds like a lot of work, it probably is. How badly would you like to be published?
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