December 2021: Rejection Comes With the Territory

One thing I’ve had to get used to as a writer is rejection. For someone who is naturally very sensitive and in general wants to be liked by everyone, learning to accept rejection as part of my writing aspirations was a slow and painful evolution. Every rejection toughened me up a little more and now, after a few decades, I’m able to be more diplomatic. I get it. My writing isn’t for everyone but it can still sting.

            Oddly enough, the toughest rejections are not the form letters that tersely inform me that my work isn’t right for a particular publication, “please try us again in the future,” yada, yada. The toughest rejections are the ones that arrive in the form of a handwritten note from the editor saying something like, “our editorial staff enjoyed intense debate over your work but ultimately decided it’s not right for us at this time.” Aghh! So close! I’ve been known to shout at the message, “Just take it already! It’s only one page! It’s only two pages!”

            Rejection letters aren’t as fun these days as they were back in the snail mail days. Opening an envelope is much more dramatic than opening an email. Besides, the paper rejections can pile up, physical evidence that I’m at least trying to put myself out into the world. Email rejections get relegated to a special computer folder never to be opened again.

            For a child who used to take offense at even the smallest infraction: “Why do you wear your hair like that?” “Why do you close your eyes when you smile?” “Why are you so short?” “What is up with your clothes?” and as a child plagued with crippling timidity who never demanded her way, never commanded a room and was never the life of a party, encountering criticism of any kind historically rendered me paralyzed.

            I was so timid as a child that when a teacher called on me to answer a question, my eyes welled up with tears as terror gripped me over the possibility of giving a wrong answer or in some unpredictable and innocuous way, making a fool out of myself.

            One such incident occurred in the fifth grade when my teacher handed me a flashcard with a vocabulary word on one side and its definition on the other. She instructed each student she’d handed a card to to stand in front of the class and take turns pronouncing their word and then reading the definition aloud. She handed me a card that read “fatigue” in Magic Marker, fat black letters drawn in my teacher’s textbook penmanship. When it came my turn to pronounce my word, I held up the card and boldly pronounced, “Fah-ti-joo” before the class.

            My classmates didn’t pick up on my mispronunciation because it was a new word to all of us, but my teacher roared. She threw her head back and guffawed. Of course, I see the humor in it now, but at the time I was so crushed and embarrassed that something in me surely died. Clearly, it devastated me because here I am almost 50 years later writing about it.

            That moment wasn’t a rejection so much as it is indicative of putting myself “out there” only to be shoved back into my skin somehow diminished rather than affirmed. The moment was less about my teacher’s reaction than it was about my perspective on her reaction. In her defense, I know she meant me no harm, and I can laugh at it now too.

            Fast forward a couple of decades and many more instances of putting myself into the position of seeking the approval of others and failing to handle it well, and I decide to throw myself into the furnace of public opinion to write for publication. Writing isn’t that difficult, right? I mean, each of us speaks words all day every day. How difficult can it be to write them down and get someone to give us money for it? Turns out, it’s insanely difficult.

            The American journalist, Gene Fowler, is credited with saying, “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

            Not only is the writing part difficult, but if you’re someone who aspires to put your work in front of the eyes of readers, the task can seem gargantuan. Regardless, writers through the ages begin by beginning. One must take their creation and offer it to a publisher more than likely eliciting their first rejection. Then again and again, on repeat until one day something utterly foreign and exhilarating happens and a message arrives that reads, “We’d like to publish your work.”

            Suddenly none of the rejections matter anymore. Validation washes over the writer and for a moment, all the stars align. The writer doesn’t consider that just because the editor wants her work readers will appreciate it. She doesn’t think about the fact that the world is fraught with non-writing critics who will find every flaw and question every decision. She sees her hard work in print and it’s as rapturous as it is terrifying.

            I miss the days of paper rejections arriving in the mail as I think that, by now, I could have covered the walls of my writing room with multi-colored scraps. It’s not that I’m proud of the rejections as much as I am affirmed by them as evidence that I am still trying, and that I have, to some degree, overcome the hesitations of that fearful little girl who didn’t think she could endure one more “no.”