A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Thirteen

In looking at advice on rejections, the thing that is most common to hear is some variant on "don't let it get to you," and there is certainly truth to the idea that everyone faces rejection (and not only in writing and the arts), but it is also a bit difficult to see this as actual advice.  For one thing, it offers no actual help on how to achieve not caring.  It offers an outcome, but is rarely ever presented with a real, workable concept of how to accept these results, except, perhaps, on an individual level.  Beyond this, and more significantly, it is a dodge of the real question, as anyone asking about rejection is not looking to be told about the process of receiving rejections, but what steps can be taken to change that outcome.  It is a bit like going to a guidance councilor for advice on getting into college and being told what to expect in your rejection letters, instead of being provided insight on how to submit a successful application.  It is not useful in a real sense, and only serves to dismiss the real problems being discussed.

While it is certainly positive to be able to step away from the strain of rejection, to feel unbound by it, there is also a reality that one cannot be fully dismissive of these results either.  It is no good to be told to just persist, unless those saying it are doing so with the intent of not helping.  Indeed, one can imagine it as a kind of trap: those who will never succeed can be offered the same non-advice as those who will, and be told things will change, if they just keep going.  Advice that says to keep doing what fails, but not feel bad about those failures is inherently flawed, and I hope that is self-obvious.

This is not to say that a writer shouldn't be advised to stay calm about rejections, or that it should be taken as a personal insult, but to suggest that it is not helpful when this is provided alone.  For me, as one who has a very long streak of rejection at present, such advice, when offered without real practical steps on how to approach the application process itself in a strategical way, seems very dismissive.  I am told, on one hand, that my work is good.  I have had respected poets and editors tell me, in private conversation, that work I have is certain to find a place in print, only to have it rejected by all those I share it with.  I have gotten many "encouraging" rejections, as well.  None of this has changed anything.  I do not really care all that much about any one rejection, but the pattern is not the same thing, and my upset at it is not the same as the upset of a writer who cannot believe a certain editor dislikes their work.  It is a matter, for me, of wanting to know what it is I am doing that is not working, and discovering a way to alter that in order to change the outcome, but when I receive advice, it is "keep doing the same thing and feel okay with failing."  That is not advice.  It is, to me, the opposite.