feeling rejected rejection slips rejection letters courbet the artist's studio

Feeling Rejected: Slips

Chapter six in a series on Book and Art Business 101 wherein I show how the solid logic of art business sold me on self-publishing. If you’re too busy for the whole series, download your copy of my Cheat Sheet for Book and Art Business 101. 


I grew fascinated in this time with rejection slips — with feeling rejected and with the feel of rejection slip paper.

It was, in retrospect, something of a holy masochistic pleasure — that “pleasure out of pain” Chesterton referred to in his dedication to The Man Who Was Thursday:

Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled; Some giants laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world.
I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flings
Far out of fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things;
And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass,
Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass;
Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rain—
Truth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain.
Yea, cool and clear and sudden as a bird sings in the grey,
Dunedin to Samoa spoke, and darkness unto day.
But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms.
God and the good Republic come riding back in arms:
We have seen the City of Mansoul, even as it rocked, relieved—
Blessed are they who did not see, but being blind, believed.

What I mean is this: I had learned that rejection would not kill me, but would make me stronger. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” That’s a nihilistic thought from Neitsche, by the way. I should add to it: sometimes the rejection would kill me — kill my dreams, my aspirations, my momentum, my desire to write. And then I would find myself resurrected from the ash of that forest fire that had passed to write again by the Being who donates being to the universe — ten million leaves of grass from ten million worlds roared into my life again. I am a storyteller. To deny myself another try is, in part, to deny a piece of my own being. So rejection killed me. And then I came alive and found myself stronger, gifted with a new position on the battlefield somewhere beyond the throes of death.

Learning to deal with rejection goes beyond merely learning patience, learning what the ancients called “long suffering.” It’s that whole for the joy set before Him, he endured bit. Suffering to what end? We are all, all of the time, looking for the meaning in our suffering. As a Christian, I had a pretty solid theological answer for the problem of pain, but that answer had yet to manifest itself in my own existential crisis at the precise moment of each rejection.

Feeling rejected, early on, became something of a crippling force.

It stopped me. And then I would have to start turning the flywheel again, start building momentum like a donkey on a millstone to be able to get anywhere. And then, in that death, I suddenly came alive once more. I discovered that the rejection would point me back to my core and in my core, there was an internal scorecard. The first time I found it, it felt like Christmas. I actually felt joy at receiving a rejection slip because I immediately went back to the work and asked: Does this new piece grade well on your internal scorecard? Early on, almost every time the answer was “no.” In which case I would return to the work and fix what was broken or scrap the work and try again.

READ NEXT:  Where do your ideas come from?

I was probably on my third time through Stephen King’s On Writing in this time and enchanted by the idea of hanging my rejection slips on a wall so I drove a nail into my upstairs and mimicked King. And I too eventually had to get a larger spike — a massive roofing nail — to hold it all up. And I too found that the more I paid attention to that internal compass, that internal scorecard, the more I started getting personal notes and acceptances, sometimes from the strangest of places. The McSweeney’s piece, for instance, was written in an hour and sent immediately without revision. I don’t recommend this, but somehow I knew on that one. I got an email that afternoon.

The point is the compass. I’ve dabbled in other things and the same process will happen: first timid from rejection with a lot of stops and starts, then a general apathy for what people say to you unless it relates directly to that internal compass. You must become unknowing and uncaring in regards to your success. Have integrity and move forward.

The internal compass is integrity. Integrity of soul. Integrity of mind. Integrity of work and the goals you’re after. You will come to love rejection as much as a basketball player loves having a coach.

But sometimes in feeling rejected you will find yourself pointing westward in a direction you did not intend to go:

The way your internal compass has pointed all along.

I’ll talk about this more in the Author Earnings section, but suffice to say with this most recent novel, I kept getting feedback from agents who would say, “I was excited to read this, but it needs an editor for the final polish” or “The novel really sticks with me, but it needs an editor” or “You have some really great things going, but hire an editor.”

Those rejections coupled with my internal compass pointed out my future path…


Don’t have time for the whole series?

That’s okay, I made you a…

CHEAT SHEET TO BOOK BUSINESS

Here’s our outline for upcoming posts:

  1. Intro
  2. The Gateway Drug: Poetry
  3. Does Fiction Lie? — The Liar’s Club
  4. Where and How to Sell What You Write
  5. From Daydreams to Written Dreams
  6. Rejection Slips
  7. Any Money Makes a Professional Writer
  8. Quarterly Assignments
  9. Making Good Money… in a shadow career
  10. Kinfolk and Advocates or “How to Build a Platform”
  11. Draconian Contracts
  12. Author Earnings
  13. Succeeding for Others
  14. Blaze a Trail All Your Own

lancelot tobias mearcstapa schaubert monogram

cover image is Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio, 1855


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Quick note from Lance about this post: when you choose to comment (or share this post with your friends) you help other readers just like you.

How?

Well, see, your comments & sharing whisper a few things to those who come after you:

The first is that this site is a safe place to speak up & stay curious. That it's civil. That discussion is encouraged. That there's no such thing as a stupid question (being a student of Socrates, I really and truly believe this). That talking to one another and growing together is more important than anything we could possibly publish. That the point is growing in virtue and growing together and growing wise. That discovery is invention, deference is originality, that we all can rise together. The only folks I'm going to take comments down from are obvious jerks who argue in bad faith, don't stay curious, or actively make personal attacks. And, frankly, I'd rather we talk here than on some social media farm — I will never show ads and the only thing I'm selling anywhere on the site or my mailing list is just the stuff I make.

You're also helping folks realize that anything you & they build together is far more important than anything you come to me to read. I take the things I write about seriously, but I don't take myself seriously: I play the fool, I hate cults of personality, and I also don't really like being the center of attention (believe it or not). I would much rather folks connect because of an introduction I've made or because they commented with one another back and forth and then build something beautiful together. My favorite contributions have been lifelong business and love partnerships from two people who have forgotten I introduced them. Some of my closest friends NOW I literally met on another blog's comment section fifteen years ago. I would love for that to happen here — let two of you meet and let me fade into the background.

Last, you help me revise. I'm wrong. Often. I'm not embarrassed to admit it or worried about being cancelled or publicly shamed. I make a fool out of myself (that's sort of the point). So as I get feedback, I can say, "I was wrong about that" and set a model for curious, consistent learning, and growing in wisdom. I'm blind to what I don't know and as grows the island of my knowledge so grows the shoreline of my ignorance. It's the recovery of innocence on the far end of experience: a child is in a permanent state of wonder. So are the wise: they aren't afraid of saying, "I don't know. That's new: please teach me." That's my goal, comments help. And I read all reviews: my skin's tough, but that's not license to be needlessly cruel. We teach one another our habits and there's a way to civilly demolish an idea without demolishing another person: just because I personally can take the world's meanest 1-star review doesn't mean we should teach one another how to be crueler on the internet.

For three magical reasons — your brave curiosity, your community, & my ignorance:

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