The Rejection File

I read Patricia's last post and want to say Congratulations. Not because of the rejection letter because it`s just shitty to receive that response but because its a courageous act to send out your writing for someone else to "accept" or "reject." It's the act of someone who has decided to move beyond fear.

About ten years ago I was in my first flush of trying to establish myself as a writer. I sent out several articles and a fiction novel synopsis with the first three chapters. I soon received through the mail a collection of about a dozen rejection letters. I decided to be brave about it and stuck the letters in a rejection file.

I kept the file for many years, I hung onto it a lot longer than I spent working on new projects. And as it turned out I didn't send out any more queries. Even after I had the good sense to burn the rejection file the words of one letter are still ingrained in my memory.
"We really like your idea but the quality of your writing does not meet the standard of one of our authors."

I still worry about the quality of my writing. I ask people who read my work, "Does my writing lack quality?" I turn over what "quality" might mean in literary terms. It turns out to be quite an elusive concept, too vague to be corrected and too specific to be ignored. And still today something of an Achilles heel. All this despite a growing sense of objectivity which is shouting "They really liked your idea! Why didn't you re-write and re-submit?"

Surely the best way to deal with rejection is to read carefully what people have said, without dramatic interpretation, and then, as Patricia says, keep sending out the queries. Perhaps the truest mark of quality is honest endeavour and persistence.

Keeping the champagne on ice for when Patricia finds the right home for her article. Giving myself a kick up the arse for spending 10 years sulking over one rejection letter!