Say Yes, Say No....

Q: Rejection is part of the publishing process. Tell us your most memorable rejections—whether it be from queries, agents, editors, or reviewers. Anything from your funniest to your most devastating (and how you recovered), and anything in between.

-from Susan

Whoops. Posting late today with apologies. Maybe it’s because rejection isn’t my favorite topic. No one likes being turned down for anything. It makes us feel vulnerable, not good enough, inadequate. And our manuscripts are our children or alter egos in a way, so even though they’re nothing but words, having them rejected is like 80,000 or 100,000 small cuts. I think that’s why so many fine writers never feel their manuscript is ready to submit – the feat of rejection is almost worse than the actual rejections that come with the business of being a writer.

But, if we can back up enough to look at manuscript rejection more objectively, we can or should be able to realize it’s not about us personally, or even, in many cases, about our specific manuscripts. My anecdote proves this. I did find an agent (by gulping and asking an agent at a conference to read my 20 pages) and she took me on. The manuscript was duly sent out to a handful of acquiring editors at top houses. So far so good. We even got word that an editor at a major house was very interested and was going to bring the manuscript into the committee that makes the decisions. I was flying high. Then – boom – it turned out that the USA banks and investment companies that were too big to fail were about to throw us all into a recession that could become a 1930s-style depression. The editor emailed my agent to say the word from the top of the publishing house was no buying anything for three months. Sound of Susan’s balloon popping.

But that rejection, as big as it was for me, had nothing, or at least very little, to do with me or my precious manuscript. Had the editor said, “but don’t sell it to anyone else because we want it whenever the freeze ends,” it would indicated how much they loved it. Instead, radio silence and we mooched around and it eventually sold to a smaller publisher for less advance money and less serious attention.

So be it. The business of being a writer is made up of passion, excitement, camaraderie, inspiration, hard work, success, and rejection. I don’t think you get one without the others, frankly. But in the end, would you give up all the pleasure of writing a book that you know in your bones is the best you can do, and the anticipation of seeing it in print, just to avoid a few – or even many – rejections from agents or publishers who have to weigh how a story fits into their mix of clients, their imprint’s upcoming plans, or their analysis of how much money they can make off it? They have their calculus, you have your story!