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How do you handle rejection?

Jubial
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 13:29:06 GMT

Hey guys and gals. Just curious to see how other writers handle rejection when it comes to their writing. Do you ask for more feedback on improving your stories and rework them or do you just trash it and try to write something else? Just curious to see how others handle it.

Seemeekc
Wed, 10 May 2017 07:20:47 GMT

Rejection is just part of the whole writing process. Keep going forward, never give up. Many writers go through much rejection before they are finally published! Do not trash it! Keep submitting it and revising it to the specific guidelines of contests.

RickHoffman
Fri, 12 May 2017 17:03:30 GMT

Roll with the punches. Each rejection is another step towards an acceptance. As for replying to rejections, I only do so if it's personalized. If I get a form letter rejection, I'm not replying, but if an editor has taken time to write a personalized response, then I'll send a brief "Thank you for the personal note. I look forward to submitting again to _______."

chrisdreyfus
Sat, 13 May 2017 02:23:48 GMT

I'm in my 60's. When I retired, I took up writing fiction after a lifetime of reading it. I have had an endless stream of rejections over the past 3 years and only one story published in a blog. If I was 25 I think rejections would be more painful but these days I take it in my stride and try to do better every time. I have never received feedback with a rejection, unless I've paid for it. Sometimes I get a small positive reply but I have found even these, to be set in the body of the rejection and repeated verbatim in the next one from the same publisher. TBL is a very rare exception. I belonged to the penfactor group until it folded. It was an absolute boon to my writing and I was sad to see it's demise. I am now a member of the sixfold.org project and I highly recommend it for both feedback and excellent ranking algorithm. Only $4 to submit a story but you have to critique 18 stories in 3 rounds over 6 weeks. I have found it's worth it for some excellent fe edback and commenting on the work of others is good practice, often informs my own writing. You get the occasional unhelpful dumb-cluck critique but they're rare.

Jubial
Wed, 24 May 2017 12:59:41 GMT

Chris that site sounds awesome, I'm totally checking that out.

chrisdreyfus
Wed, 24 May 2017 23:49:35 GMT

Jubial, if you don't mind a lot of reading , some of which is heavy going, the rewards are great, I think. Sometimes you get to read a truly exceptional story. The standout story for me last time, actually won the $1000 prize and was published. You get ranked overall out of a competing field of 260 -300 entries at the end. The next session isn't until August, but worth the wait. Good luck.

Corinne
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 23:48:19 GMT

I suggest never trashing anything! But it can be very helpful to put something down for a while if it doesn't seem to be working, and move onto something else. Then when you come back to it, months or years later, everything may fall into place! I had one poem that I felt had potential but just wasn't quite working. I recently came back to it after about a year and a half and I changed it from second to first person, cut the first three lines, and all of a sudden it clicked.

chrisdreyfus
Sat, 24 Jun 2017 05:03:55 GMT

Great advice and couldn't agree more CocoSoLee. I just now completed a final draft of a short story that had nagged at me over many months. Couldn't quite get a handle on it and put it in the virtual drawer for a year. I revisited it the last couple of days and it all came together. This has happened many times for me now. If it bothers you, put it away and revisit it another time. Start that other one you've been thinking about :)

Angela D.S.
Mon, 26 Jun 2017 01:50:17 GMT

Rejection doesn't bother me as much anymore as it used to. But I make my decision on the piece based on what I think I can do with it. I always submit it rounds to journals, so there is round one, round two, round three. Then I look at reworking the piece if I am in love with it, because then it has had time to sit and I can be more objective. Sometimes I take a piece and create something new, sometimes I just keep working with the same piece . I have pieces I love and want to get published, so those I will work with forever probably.

Alyssa Jordan
Tue, 04 Jul 2017 20:56:36 GMT

I'm probably echoing other people here, but I think it's a good idea to keep all of your stories (I wouldn't trash them). You never know what one particular story can turn into, or when you may want to go back to it. I go through periods where a piece I love will be rejected by several journals/magazines. When that happens, I usually ask a few trusted friends to look it over and see what they think. In most cases, I try to submit again.

MREHardin1984
Thu, 06 Jul 2017 20:02:47 GMT

I feel like garbage for awhile and don't feel like even looking at my work for a bit. Then I just reread it and try and think of ways to either improve it or figure out what could have been off. I have a feeling I have a rubbish query letter. I keep trying to improve that as well. I would never get rid of anything I write. I'm proud of my work even if no one wants it. I want it because it came from me.

Amanda Farbanish
Fri, 07 Jul 2017 00:32:24 GMT

I'm going to repeat it because it's worth repeating; never trash anything! All writing is a learning experience, so even if the piece amounts to nothing, you might one day take the one good line from it and turn it into something great--or at the very least read it one day in the future and pat yourself on the back on how far you've come :) For me, I try to get feedback from trusted writing friends. Oftentimes they find a stupid little thing I missed, and fixing it makes everything leagues better. Talking things out is almost always helpful. And then there are times, like others said, where you need to give the piece time to breath. It just depends on what you're feeling at the time :)

sampsonblack
Fri, 21 Jul 2017 13:31:33 GMT

Of course, rejection is not fun. More often than not, it leaves a person with a damaged sense of self-worth. In reality, rejection happens to all of us, and it's not restricted to writing. There have been a few dark times in my life when I've felt as if life was nothing but rejections--nil of positive aspects. If positives did exist, there were certainly scant. Thankfully, I didn't hold this view for long. I changed my perception of rejection and tried to welcome it instead of dread it. This was and is still hard to do! Instead of taking the rejections like personal daggers, I try my best to remove myself from the situation by focussing on the facts. If I do get feedback, I absolutely try to make adjustments. Maybe there is something I can do better or something I have never thought about doing. Now that I've changed my outlook on rejection, I feel as though I am able to improve because I'm not being rigid. There is always room for improvement, and I try to apply that rule when I receive rejection.

Baron_Samedi
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 13:31:22 GMT

Use it as fuel to get better!

resilient_gal
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 06:44:24 GMT

I used to not like rejections, now I just shrug it off and continue my projects because I want to.

SYRENA
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:31:43 GMT

I know they are not personal but they are still kind of frustrating.

kennyflem
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 20:26:59 GMT

Now that I understand in writing that rejection is the rule and not the exception, receiving rejections is much easier for me. There are a lot of talent writers out there in the world, so it's makes sense that rejections happen. I heard a writer speak that said you should aim to get 100 rejections a year. That's hard to do, but it also helps focus the writer on the creative side versus the business side. I think it's always helpful to go back and find ways to make ones stories better or stronger. Some stories need to be abandoned in order for a writer to grow, but sometimes it's not the stories, but us as writers. Sometimes a person can just have a great idea but not be a good enough writer to pull it off. That's when one just continues to read, to write, to revise, and over time, one's writing will get stronger and stronger. And one day you'll look back at that story that you wanted to abandoned, and suddenly all its faults and problems will be clear as day, and you'll know exactly what to do to fix it.

mleddy
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 14:19:45 GMT

Obviously rejection hurts, but I try to use it to motivate me to improve my writing! After all, if my piece was rejected then there must be something it needs, or something I'm not doing quite right yet. It helps to know that a) every writer gets rejected more than they get accepted and b) every story, even brilliant and famous ones like "Guests of the Nation" by Frank O'Connor go through many, many, many drafts before they reach that peak of perfection.

macbowers
Fri, 06 Jul 2018 18:01:06 GMT

My sophomore year of college, I read an essay (I can't remember what it was called) about this author who dealt with rejection by taking rejection letters and attaching them to a chair. Whenever she was feeling sorry for herself about being rejected, she had to go sit in that chair and when she got up, she had to be "over it" and get right back to work. I LOVED this idea, and now my best friend (who is also a writer) and I have our very own Chair of Rejection. If I'm upset about something writing related, I go sit in the chair. That's when I'm allowed to dwell on it and be frustrated. When I'm not in the chair, I have to tell myself that being rejected is just part of the process, and to use it as motivation to keep going. This really works for me, and I like having a kind of "place" to put all those negative feelings.

evanjamessheldon
Sat, 07 Jul 2018 22:13:51 GMT

Rejections can sting. I think , for me, the best way to get over it is to continue to work. Write something that I am excited about. Many journals are accepting pieces out of the slush at a very small percentage. But they are accepting them. If you know you may have to submit a story fifty different times to get it published, then anything less than that is awesome. Keep after it and it will pay off.

BFWhelehan
Tue, 17 Jul 2018 20:27:16 GMT

It's always hard not to take rejection personal but I try to keep baseball in mind. If you bat .300 for your 20 year career there's a good chance you'll be on a HOF vote. That translates to 70% rejection but you'll never get those 30% hits if you don't get back in the box. I admit its tough to get back in the box sometimes - especially when you think you just finished some of your best work and its shot down right away but just keep making minor changes and take another swing. Jeter made a hell of a career getting on base and avoiding swinging for the fence every at bat.

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