A Young Widower's Tale
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writing nuts I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a lot of writers who have egos more fragile than egg shells. Yesterday when I check the mail, there were a couple of form rejection letters from agents and publishers. The funny thing about the rejection letters is that they go out of their way to make sure the writer feels good about the rejection. For example the letters read in part: “…there are many worthy projects we must decline. Of course this bears no reflection on the quality of the submission.” “…please do not take this rejection as being a negative reflection of your work…” “I can assure you that your material was examined closely….Please know this is in no way a comment on the quality of your material…” Reading these rejection letters makes me wonder how many suicide notes and/or threats of violence agents/publishers received after mailing rejection letters. So as I was reading the rejection letters to Marathon Girl, and talking about how silly some of them sounded, I remembered one writer I knew in college who received a rejection letter from the student literary magazine. This girl submitted several poem that ware rejected. She was furious that at least one of her poems was not accepted. (To be honest, I read her work and it wasn’t that good but that’s another story.) She decided to stage a protest in front of the English department building and as part of her protest burned several copies of the literary magazine. (As I recall, the smoldering books smelled something akin to burning tires.) Unbeknownst to her, her actions had blackballed her from the university’s writing community. No one was ever going to even give her work a second ever again no matter how good it was. Yes it takes a lot of time and energy to write well. And yes, it’s difficult to put a lot of effort into a project only to be told there’s not a market for it. But it’s all part of the game. My advice to writers: If you take rejection that personally, you need to get out of the writing business. Maybe its because I’ve been part of an editorial staff that has had to make decisions on what or what does not get published so I understand how the process works. Often quality work is rejected. Sometimes editors publish stuff that is less than good In any case, just because someone says “no” doesn’t mean there’s someone else who will say “yes.” Marathon Girl says I can take criticism and/or rejection better than anyone she’s ever known. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m a little callous about the whole thing, but I do know that agents/publishers/editors would rather deal with a professional than a nut. You Can Now Purchase Room for Two - 2007-08-31 |
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