Blog: Why I Have to Deal Better With Rejection

So my search for a book deal hasn't managed any success just yet.

Is it because I’m not good enough? Maybe.

But the bigger reason?

I’ve not submitted anything anywhere for two weeks.

That doesn’t help, does it? How on earth am I expecting to get a book deal if I don’t give people the chance to say yes?

This is not a new phenomenon for me. There are a lot of instances in the past where I’ve had a really good idea or a good script, and I’ve been discouraged. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve read articles about famous writers who submitted something three million times to agents and publishers before they received their first book deal. It doesn’t matter how much I reread the novel I’m submitting to reassure myself that it’s pretty good.

I just can’t find the time to submit it.

Which of course, is the biggest lie I’ve told myself since ‘that beard looks good’ or ‘I can pull off a leather jacket’.

The real reason is that only two months into the year, I’ve had a couple of rejections and my confidence has taken a knock. My brain interprets the rejections as the novel being no good, and the standard rejection letters imply that it’s not possible to save it.

Of course, they didn’t say it’s impossible to save. They didn’t say it was no good. They just said it wasn’t for them. In the big pile of slush they receive every day, my little story didn’t stand out.

I know all this, but…

Wouldn’t it be a better idea to start again? Or rewrite? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to look at the plotting or the characters? Maybe I should look at the opening because it must not be strong enough. Maybe there’s a typo on page 104 – so I should go over it all again and make sure that everything is perfect.

Wouldn’t…

Maybe…

What if…

It’s a cycle, it’s a whirlpool, it’s an anxiety nightmare! If you’re a writer yourself I’m sure you recognise it. Those of you who aren’t writers much surely recognise it from other facets of life, like waiting for a text back from that person, or when you’re looking for a new job. There’s so much to consider and so many excuses we tell ourselves. I think it’s because, deep down, we know the truth.

You have to keep putting yourself out there.

You have to keep getting rejected.

You have to be vulnerable all the time.

It’s horrible, isn’t it? It’s a horrible realisation. It’s horrible to know that I might have to be vulnerable and get rejected and put things out there until I succeed. And of course, there’s no guarantee I will succeed. So I have no timescale. I have no silver lining to look forward to.

It is, though, the only way I’m going to get what I want. It’s the only way I’m going to achieve what I’ve set out to do.

Crikey.

I’m going to get back to it. By the time you get your next email, I’ll have submitted the novel. At least once. I promise.

The next email is coming in 2025.

Joking!

Next week. I promise.

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