This week, I collected rejection letters from agents for my first novel. While the first one from a big agent—who had loved the first three chapters and requested the full manuscript—did sting, mostly it’s been a fairly Zen process for me.
My job is to write. That’s what I’m focusing on.
I read the rejections letters, some very kind, others indifferent, and sure, my tiny lacking-in-confidence writer heart weeps a little. I might sulk for an hour or two. I tell myself that I’m a terrible writer and that there’s no reason for me to believe that my work is anything other than personal gratification. Then I have a small piece of chocolate (or three) and the pragmatic part of me gets into gear. It says, look, if I’m terrible at this, then the only way to not be so terrible is to practice and keep writing in order to get better. And if I work on the next book, then even if this one doesn’t sell, I won’t be the failure, this particular book will.
I’ve been working on the next novel and of course, it feels harder the day after a “sorry, not for us” email arrives in my Inbox. The weight of the rejection feels heavy on my shoulder, but I keep pushing anyway. I keep showing up and often, when I’m in the heat of the writing, I’ll forget that there was ever a first novel, that it took five years to finish, and that no agent has fallen in love with it yet. I just fall deeply into this new story.
The struggle with this first novel is the same struggle I see in my students who’re new to freelancing or my coaching clients who’re still trying to find solid ground under their feet.
And it is this:
It is difficult, almost impossible, to determine whether the reason you’re getting rejected is because people have no vision or because you’re just crap.
For me, right now with my novel, both these things are possible.
This novel that I’m currently shopping around is a work of literary fiction set in India. That in itself limits its potential in the marketplace quite substantially. Add to that the fact that I’m not following the traditional formula of “novels set in India,” and am in fact, writing a novel about mental illness, parenthood, and religion that just happens to be set in the country, and it’s easy to see why someone might not share the belief that it will sell. But, and this is an important consideration, this is also my first novel and perhaps quite self-indulgent, and so it’s equally likely that it sucks.
The thing with any piece of writing, be that a novel or a query letter, is that if it doesn’t work, there can be a problem only with one of two things: the reader or the work.
I’m not saying the reader doesn’t get it or have the vision for it, though that can certainly be the case, but usually when someone doesn’t like a work of writing, they’re typically the wrong kind of reader for it, that is, your reader selection process is off. You haven’t pitched the right editor or agent. It doesn’t matter how adored Stephen King is and how many people love his books, I just can’t get into them because, as a bonafide wimp, I have no stomach for horror.
Of course, the other option is that the writing needs more work.
You’re never really going to know which of the two is true when you get a rejection, perhaps a little bit of both, which is why you must continue sending out that particular piece of work as well as continuing to write more.
This is exactly what happens with queries, too, and precisely why I insist that students of my course 30 Days, 30 Queries focus on numbers and send that many queries in a month.
If you know that sending a certain number of pitches is going to elevate you beyond a certain level, wouldn’t you rather work exceptionally hard and reach that level in a month than send two queries a month and take two years to get there?
As I continue to collect rejections on my novel, I’m remembering the advice I give to my students when they get demotivated during the process of pitching and getting no responses:
Focus on the numbers.
Keep producing new work.
One foot in front of the other.
Never give up.
I’m off to send out another round of query letters and write a few thousand more words on the new manuscript.
How will you be dealing with rejection today?