I thought this might be interesting: Rejection Recovery Plan by Cait London
I personally like her suggestion to "buddy wallow" when you get rejections. I think that's partly why I love Wyrdsmiths. My partner never quite knows what to say to me when I complain about getting the blue or yellow slip from Realms of Fantasy, whereas my fellow writers know just the "there, there, they don't understand your genius!" that I need.
I know at Wyrdsmiths we have a number of differences regarding whether or not its beneficial to keep your rejection letters. For myself, I'm not one of those who can look at a huge stack of "NO!!!"s and be inspired to write more (power to those who are, though!) So I throw mine out with the recycling.
Do you keep your rejections? How do you survive rejections?
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8 comments:
I keep each and every last one of my rejections because they help me to stay motivated. For a long time, I was sending out stories and those rejection letters were the only tangible proof of my efforts.
These days, I also get to do fun things like the talk I gave at a library last weekend, where I started by hauling out a stack of 500+ rejections as a reality-check on the whole "Overnight Success" myth :-)
I keep mine both because they had serious tax implications before I started selling my work and as a teaching tool in the sorts of situations Jim refers to.
I keep mine. They are motivation as well as validation.
Right now I need a good "anti-rejection" med (and no, I don't mean cyclosporin! ;)) I'm in the query process for my latest YA novel, and let's just say it's ... going.
See, rejections just make me sad. I don't need 'em for tax purposes any more, and if I look at them too long I wonder why I write, you know?
Eh, I probably just need a good ego boo med. :-)
I've always viewed them as evidence of achievement rather than signs of failure, which is why they don't make me sad.
According to Lynne, rejection letters are of great interest to future scholars. They are definitely amongst the materials that she takes for an author's archives.
Please, don't throw them out!
Give them to your archivist!
Lynne, are you crazy?
I certainly save any rejection letters that are at ALL personal, but why on earth would any one want form rejection letters?
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