Why, Yes, I AM Grateful For All The End Of The Year Rejection, Which Has Continued Into This Month

My retreat reading spot

I work on gratitude with some of the younger members of the family. It used to be that gratitude was admired because lack of gratitude was perceived as ugly. Selfish and greedy. It turns out, though, that gratitude is an important part of spirituality. It's an important part of happiness. I think it's part of the Buddhist thing about unhappiness being caused by desire. Lack of gratitude, always wanting more, is not a very happy state. Finding something to be grateful for, like the headache you had yesterday went away on its own or the gluten free blueberry pancakes you made Monday turned out great, is significant.

So, yes, I AM grateful for the seven rejections I received in December and the two I received yesterday within fourteen minutes. I'm also grateful that the two pieces published in December didn't do well.

And Why? 

We have had many, many years...so many...when family members have died in December. Or they've been dying in December. Or they've been waiting for medical tests to see if they're dying or facing a hellish year to avoid dying. Except for a seven-year-old who spent the evening in a pediatric ED waiting to see if he had appendicitis, we had none of that this year. And that boy discovered Captain Underpants while watching a CU movie while waiting for his test results, so he probably feels he got some gain from the experience.

So, if me taking a number of rejection bullets for the family meant I was able to change our end of the year experience, I am happy to have done it. And, damn it, don't anybody try to tell me that life is random, and all that rejection was meaningless, like life, and that I didn't make a meaningful sacrifice, because I did, I tell you. I am grateful. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Retreat Week Is Next Week!

I am definitely looking forward to retreat week, though. A retreat week in which all I'm escaping is rejection and can get over that with reading and walking or snowshoeing and more reading and meditation and more reading. Ommidy omm ommm. 

I spent some time this morning revising one of my December writing starts, I've written this blog post, and I'm going to be spending most of the rest of the day prepping for retreat. Because, man, getting ready for retreat week is a lot of work.

For which I am grateful.

While Rejection MAY Mean You're a Terrible Writer, It Could Mean Something Else

Cottonbro Studio on Pexels

I don't submit a lot of book-length manuscripts anymore, especially in the field of children's lit, but a couple of days ago I received an interesting rejection on one I submitted to an agent this past summer.

"I thought this was a really interesting plot (and my dream is to solve murders in an English village!) Unfortunately, MG is so very saturated right now, and mysteries have been really hard for me to sell, so I have to pass"

The book is set in a small Connecticut town and not an English village, but I get her point.

My point is that her message illustrates that manuscripts can be rejected for all kinds of reasons having nothing to do with the manuscript itself. Writers hear that over and over again at workshops and read it in articles and blog posts. But it's rare, in my experience, for agents to explain the reasoning behind their thinking when they reject something.

It's rare, and it's very gratifying.

Nothing Like Rejection To Get Your Blood Pumping!

I just got my first rejection of the year. You know you're alive and working when the rejections roll in.

I should get myself a rejection logo.

Friday Done List For August 26

 

Long Story Short:

Goal 2 Work On Adult Short Stories, Essays, Humor: Two rejections in one day! By the time I went to bed last night, I had a plan for submitting one of these pieces, and this morning I have a plan for submitting the other one. Because that is the job.

I'm Not Getting Enough Rejection

Thursday #ShareYourRejection was a thing on Twitter. Writers, and I suppose others, shared stories of their most significant, ironic, humorous rejections. While I have plenty of rejections filed away, I don't have a juicy one. The best I can come up with is the guy who told me many years ago that they weren't interested in my story, but I wrote a good query letter. Yeah, that's not much.

As a result of the #ShareYourRejection thing I stumbled upon a Brevity Magazine blog post by Jay Vera Summer. In #ShareYourRejection: I Received 330 Writing Rejections in One Year, and I'm So Happy About It, Summer describes how she spent years submitting manuscripts, much as I have in the past. She'd submit, get rejected, think about it, submit again, get rejected again, and give up after a few times.

And then one year she submitted stories 330 times, getting 330 rejections. But she also got 12 acceptances.  "To earn those twelve acceptances," Summer says, "I had to sustain 330 rejections...That’s roughly 28 rejections for each acceptance."

I made a little over 30 submissions last year and the year before. And, yes, I "sustained" a little over 30 rejections each of those years. I've only submitted 17 manuscripts in 2018, though I have had one publication. I need to crank up those submissions. Fortunately, I've been heavily into market research this month, prepping for a submission binge after an autumn trip.

Cranking up submissions means cranking up rejections, of course.  But, hey, that's the job.