B- Call my best friend, go out for dinner, cry a little, and hit delete.
C- Call everyone I know to yell and scream, write angry e-mails to my writing group, and then hit delete.
D- Call everyone, post on my blog about the rejection, and send the agent/magazine and angry note.
E- All of the above (except A), and to top it off I will ask everyone who has ever read my work to write the agent/magazine an angry note to.
If you picked A.... you are one cool author. You know that rejections are part of publishing and you don't let it get you down.
If you picked B.... you know it hurts, and that it's good to share, but at the end of the day you face your fears and get on with life.
If you picked C.... you might need an anger management class. Rejection happens. The sooner you understand that, the happier everyone will be.
If you picked D... we have a problem. Not only did you get a rejection, but you torpedoed your publication chances in the same day. Ouch. See if you can recall your e-mail (gmail has this feature). If not, take your punches and move on.
If you picked E... I don't know where to start....
Rejection hurts, but that's no reason to throw your career away on being childish. Rather than throw a temper tantrum when a rejection comes your way take it in stride. If there's good advice, or suggestions for editing, see if you can implement that. If it's a form rejection, no worries, those happen to.
If the rejections are piling up rethink your query and submission. What can you do to improve your chances for success. There are longer lists available, but you can consider this the check list for Newbie Mistakes You Don't Want To Make...
The Quick and Dirty Checklist for Submission:
- Is your novel or short story posted on the internet? If yes - don't query! You've given away first rights unless it's posted on a private (password protected) site. Take all copies down before you query.- Are you addressing the editor or agent correctly? Don't form address all your queries to "Dear Miss Snark" - Mister Agent Awesome isn't going to like this.
- Are you following the guidelines?
- Did you scare the agent by sending your query on fluffy pink writing paper with hearts?
- Is the novel or short story finished? If not, don't query.
Excellent advice...but you left out one other option.
ReplyDeleteD. Print out the rejection and hang it on the wall, then mark another tally on the "100 rejections goal" list on the door. Then delete it. This is what I plan to do - I might even print them all out on different colors of paper, so my wall ends up looking like a crazy quilt. LOL
We know that rejections are inevitable - might as well make a game out of it. ;-)
I save my nice ones. The others I just delete and forget. It's about 50-50. Some rejections are just form rejections, pretty blah. Others have nice compliments, they like my writing, but it doesn't work with the theme, other stories picked, or the line up.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's not a big deal. Yet. When I start querying novels I might get a little more uptight.
How about another one... Climb into bed for a while and hide under the covers? That's what I want to do sometimes, anyway. It depends on the day. Sometimes I'm like "Oh well!", other days it puts me in a slump.
ReplyDeleteI love this post!!!
ReplyDeleteI filed mine... more like A without delete... its just a step closer to publication.
I love this post tho... can I guess post it on my blog? Lemme know!