Yesterday I got the word that I had not scored one of the few spots at the Viable Paradise writing workshop. Certainly that disappointed me but I also moved on fairly quickly. If you are striving in this writing gig an aspect that is baked into it from the very start to the very end is rejection. It says so right on the tin.

Everyone understands that when writers are starting out that there are loads of rejections. Many writers save every slip they get, often finding creative ways to deal with the pain, such as turning them into wallpaper. In general I don’t save mine. However once you establish yourself that’s over right?

Nope.

Editors may bounce books proposals, anthologies might invite you but still find the story not quite what they had in mind, second runs will get turned down, critics will reject your art, awards will overlook your brilliance in the same manner those editors did at the start of a career. Rejection is a writer’s constant companion; it is neither a mark of shame nor an indication of a lack of quality. Except for expressed comments and critiques all a rejection tells you is that the piece in questions did not work for that editor on that day.

Acceptance always tells you very little except that the story worked for the editor. As they say with financial prospectuses past performance is not indication of future performance. A string of rejections does not mean the next one to that same editor will also be rejected. I had a long strong of ‘did not place’ rejections from Writers of the Future and then skipping over Semi-Finalist and silver Honorable mentions, I scored a finalist.

Conversely a string of sales doesn’t mean the next submission to the same market will sell. Each and every piece lives and dies on its own.

When you get that rejection if there are comments, listen to them, then submit the piece a new editor, and move on to the next project.

Always writing, always submitting, that is the writer credo.