Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

Struggle is an inevitable part of life. I may not enjoy it, but I do believe it makes your successes all the sweeter. Anyone that has ever wanted to be a writer knows about struggle. Getting those first words on paper are a fight, then you’ll be battling your insecurities that scream that every syllable is garbage and you should just throw it all out and be done with it. Once you overcome that hurdle, you really do have to throw a lot of it out in the editing process, which is an entirely different kind of war.

Then, once you’ve bled over your manuscript, worried over it like a child, and put enough of yourself into the words that you almost wonder if it does have a life of its own, you have to send your offspring off into the cruel world to fend for itself.

I hate to break it to those who haven’t yet started this road, but rejection is inevitable.

The first one hurts. It’s a little like first love, even though we know full well the odds are against meeting your “happily ever after” Disneyesque life-long love in middle school, somehow we all still believe that this one is different. When it fails, after days or weeks, or even months, that disillusionment hurts more than anything else. The same is true for that first rejection notice. We know the odds, we just really hope that they don’t apply to us.

The thing to remember is that a rejection notice doesn’t necessarily mean that they are rejecting you or your work. It means they don’t think they can make a profit off of it. Yes, you’re an artist, but they are business people, and profit is the point of business.

Instead of spending the evening with a fifth of vodka or an entire tub of ice cream, I would suggest going back in swinging. No, I don’t mean you should fire off an angry letter, facebook post or the like. I mean figure out why they thought they couldn’t make a profit, and fight that.

If your rejection notice came quickly, as they often do at first, then there are some common problems you can check. First, read their website or submission guidelines. Odds are you violated one of those without realizing it, and got rejected without even being read. Sounds cruel, but there are tons of people that want to be writers, and each publishing venue only has a limited number of people reading.

Your cover letter is a job application. If they reject you out of hand, go back and look at the resume you’ve sent them. In this case, we’re talking about your cover letter and synopsis. Does it fit the requirements? Is it compelling? Truthful?

Though it isn’t what you want to hear, perhaps the work you’ve submitted isn’t polished enough yet. Grammar, syntax, voice, they should all be consistent within the work. Publishers want it as close to printable as possible, because that translates to faster print times, and greater profits.

You might also have chosen a publisher that simply isn’t a good fit for the work you’ve produced. Sending religious fiction to a science fiction publisher rarely works out well. Alternately, you may have chosen a perfect publisher, but they already have six prospective novels about werewolves on the table, all from established authors. Even if your werewolf novel is good, they are likely to go with the author that’s earned them the most money already, because it’s the safest bet.

Rejection isn’t the end of the world, even if it feels like it. It’s just another step toward becoming what you want to be. That first one isn’t fun, but you learn from it and move on. There aren’t many best-selling authors out there that don’t have a few rejection stories to tell. One day, you’ll be one of them.

Cheers,

Michelle