Tonight is my last class for this semester's Writing for Children's Books at RISD, and it’s rejection night. That’s right: this is the evening that I bring in my teetering pile of rejection letters and my students look aghast for a little while. A depressing way to end? I don’t think so at all.
They’re going to get rejection letters. Everyone does. The more rejection letters they get, the closer they’ll be to an acceptance. Each one is a necessary step. Each a rite of passage. Each an opportunity to revise and try again. And rejection letters do tend, after a while, to evolve, as I explain in class.
There’s always a student who says, “You actually keep them?!”
Of course I do. I was sifting through the pile this morning and found six “positive” rejections for a picture book I’d shelved some time ago. Now I’m thinking it might be time to get that text out and revise it, take a good hard look after letting it ferment and see what I can do to make it viable. Apparently, there’s something there to work with, which I wouldn’t have considered without the letters.
As I was researching author rejection statistics, I also came across this great little interview with the wonderful Kate diCamillo who apparently was rejected 397 times (sources vary on the number, and I saw as many as 500 times) before she found a home for the 2001 Newbery Honor book Because of Winn Dixie.
So, today I thought I’d share my thoughts on rejection.
Rejection is What You Make It
My first form rejection made me cry. I think. I really don’t remember it that well, though at the time I probably felt I'd never forget the sting. In the seventeen years since then, I’ve had many rejections. Somewhere along the way, "positive rejections" began to outnumber form rejections, and after a time I gathered a few non-rejections—um, I mean "acceptances." Form letter-induced tears have given way to forced laughter, then grim-but-determined smiles, wry sighs, and now more or less indifferent shrugs.
This is par for the course. And it’s a challenging course. It’s not for the faint of heart. It will:
- bamboozle the uninitiated
- overwhelm the lazy
- shrivel up the gutless
- stymie the passive aggressive faster than they can wail, “It’s not my fault, it’s theirs!”
- quickly teach you whether or not you’re a quitter.
Achieving publication requires:
- guts
- stamina
- passion
- hard work
- vision
- professionalism
- a hearty dose of mindless, blind faith that success is just around the corner… or the next… or the next...
- the belief that the journey, the lovely people met along the way, and the countless hours spent learning, creating, crafting, revising, and editing are worth the struggle
- niceness.
Glorious and bountiful form rejections:
- force you to be a better writer;
- show your developmental arc as a writer;
- teach you to accept rejection (any kind of rejection in *Life!*) with dignity, learn from it, shrug off any residual pain, and bloody well just get on with it;
- and tell you you’re probably gutsy, strong, passionate, hard-working, accepting, professional, and if you’re not already, at least on the way to being nice. And cool. And dignified. And visionary! And possibly slightly delusional, but that’s ok... You’re a writer.
* Originally posted on cleverbirdy.blogspot.com on 2.25.11