Surviving Failure and Rejection
By Barbara O'Neal | December 17, 2015 |
One of the most excruciating aspects of a writing life is the inevitable rejection and failure that go along with the job. It’s not if you are rejected or if you fail—it is when.
- That manuscript you thought finally might carry you over the threshold of publishing is rejected. 26 times.
- The book your agent and editor loved, the book that landed a starred review in a major journals (or three) has disappeared off the shelves and no one is saying a word about a paperback version, or a possible new contract.
- You’ve gathered your courage, polished your book to a high sheen, hired great editors and pulled together a professional package, and published your commercial series. Over the course of a year, it sells five copies, two of those to your sisters.
The list goes on. It can be a contest loss, a failure to pass even the first round of applications to a prestigious writer’s colony, a mean-spirited review in a popular magazine. It might mean that your agent decides to pass on a book you really love, or your publisher drops you. It never stops, really, the myriad ways writers are humiliated and panned and rejected. It always feels so personal, doesn’t it? Writing isn’t something you do with just a little bit of yourself—most of us are all in, all the time. That’s our blood on those pages, our tears.
Conversely, one of the things a writer must access is a certain confidence, maybe even a bit of arrogance, to get the job done. It’s cheeky of us to imagine that we can sit around making things up and people will want to read them, but you know—that is the job. Having confidence in your story powers is a cornerstone of doing it well.
How the hell do you do that when your guts are spilled over the floor, when your heart is torn to shreds? How do you get yourself back to the page after some big failure or rejection?
I’ve had as much or more failure and rejection as any other writer, starting with that file folder filled with 79 printed rejections at the start of my career, continuing through bad reviews on books I loved (“the point? Apparently none.”), books that died on the shelf in six seconds, contracts that were not reviewed, my agent flatly rejecting something, publishers turning down other projects. Yes, my lads and lassies, I’ve experienced nearly all of them. I’ve had to develop strategies to keep myself moving, even if I’m holding my intestines in my hand as I stagger back to the keyboard.
Here are a few things I’ve found to be helpful:
The Wailing Days
Take a couple of days and rage, grieve, wail, do whatever rituals you’d indulge for a broken heart. Set a time limit, depending on the size of the loss, but keep it short—no more than five days.
Go ahead and feel crushed. Complain to your best writing buddies about the unfairness, the stacked nature of the writing game. Wallow. Eat ice cream or down some scotch. Journal those dark thoughts.
Letting Go
Once you’ve gnashed your teeth and grown tired of the sugar hangovers, go read about some books that were rejected or read this essay on failure by seven writers.
Remind yourself that mostly the rejection is only the decision or opinion of one person, and no one person is going to like all others. What if the first girl you kissed was the one you married? (It happens, but…..) As Susan Wiggs always said on the old GEnie RomEx, “A rejection is simply an invitation to submit your work to the right publisher.”
Get a metaphorical dart board or make something up about your rejection that makes you feel better. I had a series of bad reviews from one publication and it was terribly painful. I finally told myself that the same reviewer was reading the books, and I made someone up—a wizened old litfic dude with tufts of ear hair in a cluttered apartment in some faded apartment in some unfashionable NYC neighborhood (this was back when there was such a thing), furious that he had to read crap to pay his rent. Wow, did it make me feel better! It made me laugh, for one thing, and whether it was true or not doesn’t matter. It removed the painful sense of judgment that could have become a canker of interference in my creative process.
Sometimes, it can be helpful to see if there are any common threads in rejection or failures—but maybe not. What if JK Rowling had listened to the common threads of rejection in her work? What a loss for the world!
Our job is not to judge, but to create. As Andy Warhol famously said, “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
Renew
The weary inner artist needs some tending at this point. Give yourself the best artist’s date you can think of. If you love planes, go to the aeronautics museum in the closest big city. Take a flamenco class or an art class. Whatever it is that you know feeds your artistic heart. Kindle your passions.
This is also a good time to read the research material you love, or start planning something new. Give yourself a little time to just write for the love of it—nothing for publication or to show, just to remember that you’re doing this because writing is something you do. You love it, or you wouldn’t be here.
Back to Work
The way toward triumph begins by rolling up your sleeves. If you’ve been rejected, is it time to set up a new round of submission possibilities? Are you ready to tear into the book and do some rewriting? Go for it.
Then start something new, something you’re excited about. Write for that one, singular, special reader—your own.
Do you have tricks for overcoming the emotional trauma of failure and rejection? What’s your favorite wallowing ritual?
[coffee]
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
The book I’ve worked on for fifteen years is sitting on my shelf where I can touch it, pick it up, admire the formatting of the faux New Yorker quote which begins the story. I can run my finger down the spine, now that the POD folk moved it a millimeter and the text on the back cover is centered perfectly.
I have done what you said – polished to a high sheen – and its fate is still unknown.
But I did it, and I will never have to wonder if I could have finished it. I had all those rejections you talked about on the previous book. Meh. I may get back to that one some day.
I’ve gone back to work already, before the marketing is even finished. I’ve celebrated. I’ve had my mini rage that we haven’t sold 600K copies in the first month.
What seemed to help is that I’ve already done MY job. Reviews are trickling in, far too slowly, but Amazon is forever.
Standard Cognitive Behavior Therapy: grab the negative thoughts by the throat and talk some sense into them. I can’t control the world, but I CAN control me. So I’m going back to the land where I’m god. Time’s a’wastin’.
You said it, Alicia. You’ve done your work. That’s all any of us can do. Bravo.
I can’t get enough of these kinds of posts about how to weather the failures and setbacks. Barbara, your timing is perfect for me today. My third mystery novel came out in October and is having a tough time reaching readers, even with good reviews and a small readership established. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not like steps up a ladder in this business. Expectations! It’s more like peaks and valleys. Sometimes, I just accept the slump and go eat ice cream. Your “back to work” is good advice. Thank you!
When one of my books, early on, had a bad review and lackadaisical sales–a book I adored–I wailed to an older writer about it. She said “Remember, you’re always building your backlist.” Words that could not have been truer. That book is now one of my all-time bestsellers.
Back to work you go.
“Building your backlist.” I like that a lot!
Thanks for this article, I agree, I can’t read enough hopeful, good advice for weathering through rejections. Glad to know we have a community that supports each other =)
My best way to overcome any sort of writerly doldrums? Reading. For me, it means diving into big, fat epics – the kind that transport you and that you don’t want to end. Side benefit? They remind me why the hell I ever decided to subject myself to this harsh master known as The Writing Life.
Thank you for being such a radiant presence in my writing community, Barbara! Wishing you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons!
Oh, yes, reading. The balm of all. I’m taking a reading day myself today, not to nurse any wounds, but to remember that this is my favorite thing.
What a lovely compliment. Thank you, and may you have the same joy.
I’m with Vaughn (as usual!). Reading can really lift me out of almost any slump — but most especially a writing slump.
Great post, Barbara. I feel like we writers constantly need this course prescribed to us. (Probably because, as you said, the rejections never really stop!)
Ooooooh, yes. As an agent I’ve been there with clients many, many times. A promising start falls apart. A series with long legs get arthritis. Beautiful reviews become dismal sales. The list is long.
When a particular project meets with rejection, though, what I tell clients and firmly believe is this: Rejection doesn’t mean failure. It doesn’t even mean no. It only means, “not yet”. Not ready, needs work. And what’s wrong with that?
Love that, Don–long legs get arthritis. Ha! It must be challenging for an agent–you have to endure much more rejection that we do.
5 days of wallowing! If I allowed myself that much, I’d never come out of it. No, like Alicia stated, I grab my negative thoughts by the throat. One of the best tools I’ve learned for overcoming a sense of failure whenever it hits, is to review what I have accomplished. Often, until I do that, I don’t realize how much I really have done (be it for the year or over time). This year, I got my book published and sales are growing; I doubled my blog followers; I doubled my editorial income. If I didn’t stop to look at those things, I’d wallow in failure all year long. It’s much too easy to miss our accomplishments when we’re focused on the failure or rejection.
Wonderful, Barbara. Love the ‘dust yourself off’ mentality. Great advice for us all.
Happy holidays!
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Oh boy, you must have looked into my life for this. Thank you, both for giving permission to wallow, and then providing guidance on how to climb out of the wallowing pit.
I tacked the Andy Warhol quote above my desk. Thanks for the suggestions, Barbara. I’m forwarding this to writing friends and scheduling some “artist dates” for the holidays.
Now it’s back to work!
Thank you, Barbara, a great gift for the season. I have people in my life who do not support the audacity that I guess I have to be a writer, or to think I am a writer. Please write about that sometime. It’s hard to be rejected by strangers, but when you don’t even get support from your friends, what is that about? But I’m not letting the strangers or the friends keep me from writing–the weight of the words on the paper is what I seek.
I enjoy the warm, liquid sense of well-being that takes over my body after a round of brisk exercise and stretching. When it comes to writing, a Barbara Samuel post does the exact same thing for my brain. Thank you, Barbara. And best of the season to you.
Thanks, Jan. Same to you and yours.
I’ve watched a lot of author careers over the years. Many of those who sold that first book with ease then went on to sell a few more books with no rejections leave the business at their first rejection because they never had to harden up.
Rejections and the tough skin that develops from them are a good thing for a long term career.
Barbara, yesterday I received the first printed rejection for something of mine (an essay to The Sun magazine) in probably a couple of years. Not because I don’t get rejected (I certainly do, the bastards!), but because hardly anyone sends a printed rejection slip any longer; many publications don’t respond at all, or you (me) receive a perfunctory email.
Getting that slip made me weirdly happy—ahh, The Sun still sends out rejection slips, even if six months later from my mailing of the piece. I added it to my literally three-inch high folder of rejection letters, which was hungry for new fodder.
I really don’t wallow or rage at all about that stuff anymore (though I do like to experiment with classic cocktails afterwards—try a Vieux Carré sometime). I just keep putting stuff out there, and sometimes it sticks: got an assignment for Writer’s Market earlier this week. And still dog-paddling slowly, steadily through my unwashed fiction.
Thanks for the thoughtful quality of all your pieces, and jolly holidays!
Hey! I have printed rejections from the Sun! ;)
Thank you, Barbara, for the inspiring post and also for the link to the Guardian article about weathering and negotiating failure. So much to ponder!
You said, “It’s cheeky of us to imagine that we can sit around making things up and people will want to read them, but you know—that is the job. Having confidence in your story powers is a cornerstone of doing it well.”
I think that this confidence (or perhaps we can also call it a pure and obstinate artistic vision) is essential to achieving our long-term “successes.” I like the idea of this process being mostly about my relationship to myself.
This is really good and at just the right time, thank you. I really like the Andy Warhol quote. I just opened up my latest rejection (about a minute before reading this), and maybe because it’s been a long day with lots going on, I felt immediate tears, very rare these days when I get rejected (I’ve been at this a long time, too). My usual technique is to always be working on something, develop new ideas, keep the focus on writing ever more — which is good because it’s what I love. I think that’s why Warhol’s quote hit me right today. I haven’t read the Guardian article but I will. Thank you for this great post!
I’m glad the timing was good. But that’s the beauty/sorrow of this kind of a blog–the timing is bound to be right for someone that day.
Adding my thanks, Barbara, for shining a light on a reality of this business I sometimes wish I could forget. As soon as I figure out PayPal, a cuppa’s on me. You clearly have a talent for going to the heart of the matter–and giving us hope.
I will re-read this blog and take like medicine– as needed. Thanks.
Aside from my blog and letters to a local newspaper, I haven’t been able to get anything published. But I haven’t failed. It’s not that I just don’t see myself as a failure. I know I’m NOT a failure. I just haven’t yet achieved that coveted literary success. A failure is someone who gives up, even when there’s still a chance. It depends on the situation. Struggling to get a novel published isn’t quite the same as struggling to survive as a prisoner-of-war. There’s a great deal of competition, and my turn just hasn’t come up yet. I know I’m a good writer. A variety of people – not just friends and relatives – have expressed that to me. So each time a story or a novel has been rejected, I merely pull myself back together and continue. I won’t give up on myself. This is too important to me. Writing is all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life. I can’t give up on that!
Actually, I wish that I would have saved a lot more rejection letters from publishers — and I had hundreds — so that I could laugh at them now. To overcome the emotional trauma of failure and rejection, and be inspired to greater heights, I have always read words of wisdom from successful people. Here are some of these inspirational words that have helped me write and publish 15 books that have sold over 900,000 copies worldwide :
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
— Thomas Edison
“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”
— Helen Keller
“I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”
— G. K. Chesterton
“Seek above all for a game worth playing. Such is the oracle to modern man. Having found the game, play it with intensity; play as if your life and sanity depend on it. (They do depend on it).”
— D. S. Ropp
“You are never given a wish without the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.”
— Richard Bach
“To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work.”
— Sister Mary Lauretta
“No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or “get rich” in business by being a conformist.”
— J Paul Getty
“Don’t wait for your ship to come in. Swim out to it.”
— Unknown Wise Person
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure — which is: Try to please everybody.”
— Herbert B. Swope
“It’s never crowded along the extra mile.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer
“Don’t play for safety — it’s the most dangerous thing in the world.”
— Hugh Walpole
I really enjoyed reading this. It’s really easy for me to get emotionally tied up in negative opinions of my writing, and it helps to be reminded that negative reviews are important, but not to be taken too seriously.
This is really wonderful advice. I’m going to adopt the term “wailing days.” It’s a concept I’ve always believed in — allowing ourselves to fully feel something before moving on — but not one I’ve ever had such an apt description of. Thank you for sharing your struggles with us, and more importantly, the things you’ve learned that help you keep going!