It’s a given in writing, of course. Everyone—even the most famous among us—has had their brilliant work rejected by agents and publishers. J.K. Rowling suffered 12 rejections of her first Harry Potter book. Stephen King’s Carrie? 30 times. Even beloved Dr. Seuss: 27 rejections.
Stories like these are meant to give us hope, right? “Aspiring” or “new” or “unpublished” writers are meant to take heart that rejection happens to the best of us and therefore we need to stay strong and persevere. Your time will come.
But what if it doesn’t? What if it never comes?
You’ve done everything “right”. You’ve written the best story you can. You got help. You hired a book coach or an editor; you joined a critique group and recruited beta readers. You followed the best advice about query letters and researched every literary agent.
Then the first few responses come back.
Rejections.
Your heart sinks at the words. I’m sorry but…
You tell yourself it’s okay. Many more agents still need to reply.
You get more replies. More rejections.
Now it hurts. You can’t bear to read one more “no”.
Until you stop getting replies altogether.
Now you wish you could go back to agents giving enough of a damn to reply.
But you choke back the tears burning your eyes. Toughen up, you tell yourself.
So you grasp the last glimmer of hope. You’ll write another novel. You’re now more experienced, more skilled after all.
This time, you think.
This time.
Only, there is no this time.
A hopeless, gnawing cold settles into the pit of your stomach.
You’re not good enough.
The dream you had for years, decades, fades into dark nightmares of despair.
The agents write, “it’s not personal”.
But it is. It is so, so, personal to us. We don’t write because we’ll make a quick buck. We write because it’s who we are. And when agent after agent, publisher after publisher tells us we’re not who we think we are, that cuts deep.
Ask me how I know? Because I’ve been there. And you know what made it even worse for me? Thinking I’d made it with my first novel.
My book was a young-adult mystery, a modern-day retelling of Macbeth, set in high school. The murdered King Duncan, became Duncan King, the murdered student council president. My protagonist, Mackenna Duff (Macduff, get it?) vowed to find his killer. It was gold. And guess what?? I landed an agent!! I was on my way to the big leagues, with my very first novel!
And then…
Nothing.
My agent couldn’t sell it.
The end.
I was naïve enough to think if I’d gotten this far with my first novel, then my second would be the clincher.
My second was worse than my first. Even I rejected it.
But I persevered. That’s what you do, right?
To my delight, I discovered Jennie Nash, book coach extraordinaire. I didn’t even know book coaches existed. But they do. Mentor, editor, cheerleader, Jennie taught me so much about writing. More importantly, she showed me someone else believed in my work. Believed in me.
She seemed to be the only one, though. More than 60 agent rejections later, I had to stop. I couldn’t take the heartbreak. Here I’d done everything the way I was supposed to. I invested in my craft, in myself. But I came up short.
Still, I soldiered on. The next one, I told myself. Fourth time’s the charm. Even as I said it, the scorching stab of despair stayed with me.
I worked with Jennie again. She challenged me again. She made me write the best book I could, this one a YA fantasy. It’s about an angel Evangeline, whose father is Lucifer before the Fall. Who wouldn’t want to read about a daughter’s journey to understand the ultimate villain, Satan himself?
Turns out no one did.
I really was a failure.
“You’re not a failure,” my husband reminds me.
It took awhile before I realized he was right. I’m not a failure. As a book coach now myself, I know story. I understand story. I know writers. I understand writers. I love helping my clients shape their stories. I love helping them have faith in themselves.
But in all this time, I haven’t found a magic bullet, or a handy how-to list to make rejection easier.
Because rejection, no matter how prevalent it is in the writing world, still really, really sucks.
That’s why I’m here. To reassure you you’re not alone. I understand. And if you have been hurt by rejection and have a hard time sucking it up, I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email (jenbraaksmabookcoach@gmail.com) and we can chat. Because I believe in writers. Not just writing.
From the outside, the process of organizing a collection of work should seem the same no matter the project. While it’s true that the steps remain similar, each time a book comes to life, the experience is different.