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When I was dating, family and friends called me the breakup ninja. I knew how to end a relationship cleanly, with no drawn-out drama. “Would you rather have your legs sawed off or chopped off?” I used to explain my clean-break approach. Once you know the leg has to come off just go ahead and get ’er done.
An example: I had been dating a guy for a number of months and around the holidays he asked me to drive him to the airport to go visit family and pick him up a week later.
He did not call or text me while he was gone. Not one time. Not even on Thanksgiving.
To me the writing on the wall was perfectly clear: Out of sight, out of mind, which did not portend the level of interest or engagement I was looking for in a relationship. In layman’s terms, he was just not that into me.
Despite the lack of contact, I picked him up at the airport as scheduled and let him tell me all about his trip as we drove back to his apartment. Once there he asked if I’d like to come inside and I said indeed I would—where I proceeded to methodically gather my few belongings that had wound up over there in the preceding months.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m going to go home,” I said neutrally.
“Don’t you want to stay the night?”
“No,” I said. “In fact I think this has run its course.” I dispassionately explained my hurt and disappointment that he hadn’t thought or bothered to call. “Things were so hectic!” he justified, to which I replied, “I can appreciate that, but I want to be with someone who makes time for me—and wants to.”
That was the last time I ever saw him.
This was far from an anomaly in my dating life. Once I understood that a relationship was over, either because of my feelings or his, I wasted no time in severing it. I didn’t see the point of maintaining a friendship when none of these romances had started that way or been built on that foundation, and I didn’t like messy strings that might further complicate either of our emotions.
You might agree or disagree with my approach, but I realize now that it was designed to protect me from pain, both from feeling bad for rejecting someone else as well as to protect myself from my own pain of rejection.
If you’ve ever been rejected in any area—and if you’re reading this then you are presumably human and so I know you have—you may understand my motivations. Rejection is among the most painful of experiences, feeling like personal judgment on us or our worth or our lovability.
And yet if we pursue a career in the creative arts—and if you’re reading this, again I presume this applies to you—we are almost certain to face it, in many cases repeatedly. In fact rejection is a hallmark of this business, as anyone who has ever submitted their manuscript to a contest or award or agent or editor already knows.
And it sucks. There’s no real way to candycoat that. Rejection hurts on the deepest of levels—we’re hardwired for belonging—and that need for acceptance and love certainly applies to something as important to us as our creative work.
On a recent Smartless interview, actor Amanda Peet talked about being told by an agent early in her career that she needed to do something about her mustache. Will Arnett added his own story of an agent suggesting he see a nutritionist. Even now, both actors having achieved significant success, these stories had clearly stuck with them.
Read more: “Handling Rejection—and What Rejection Letters Mean, and Don’t Mean”
When I was an actor I frequently heard this kind of feedback too: I was too tall, not pretty enough, and in one memorable case, “Your nose is globular.” These rejections hurt especially when they are to your face and about your person (and often right in the middle of your monologue or scene), so in that regard I suppose writers can consider themselves lucky that much of our rejection takes place via email.
And yet I don’t think that mitigates the pain of it. I heard from an author just this week who talked about wondering when it was time for them to admit that they just didn’t have what it took after X number of submission rejections.
This is a not-uncommon reaction I see and hear from authors, and it always bothers me. To me it suggests we are always waiting for the nod, permission to pursue our art, validation that we are good enough. I’ve written a lot about this kind of external validation and how subjective this business is, but I want to talk more about the actual experience of rejection itself, and how we can learn to cope with an unpleasant part of our creative pursuits that’s not just a bug but a feature.
Everyone Gets Rejected
Rejection is inevitable in every life, no matter who you are or what you are pursuing. Who are we to imagine we will find universal acceptance and success? Think of the hubris of that, a complete lack not only of humility as a fallible and flawed human being in a mercurial and subjective world, but of reality.
Do you know a single person who has never experienced rejection or heartbreak, a crushing no? If you think you do, probe deeper. There may be those people who seem not to have experienced rejection, whose road to success looks smooth and steady and relentlessly upward-climbing.
But do not believe that.
Read more about celebrities or bestselling authors billed as overnight successes, or who seem to have had a steady climb to the top. Ask questions of the people you think have been uniformly successful. In nearly every case you’ll find the stumbles, the setbacks, the failures and rejections they encountered and overcame on the road to success—and still face.
Even those who’d like you to believe their road has been nothing but unmitigated smooth sailing to success—the self-important politicians or billionaires or stars who are self-deluded that they are self-made—had plenty of rejection and failures. They just don’t have the strength or courage or confidence to reveal it. They are spinning a fairy tale, desperate for others to believe it so they can perhaps believe it too, and escape the relentless voice in their heads that might suggest they are only human and flawed and not universally palatable…and confirm their worst insecurities about themselves.
It’s hard to blame them. The inevitability of rejection is a terrifying reality, one that can take many of us a lifetime to really grasp and accept. The world is random along with everything in it. We have no control over most of it.
But we can develop two key skills that will allow us to handle these realities in a way that’s not just healthier, but productive.
Take Back Your Power
The first step is to realize how much power you are giving to other people and factors outside your control by allowing rejection to dictate so much of your opinion of yourself and your creative work.
As an editor I’ve had authors I have worked with decide not to work with me anymore, which is right and good and as it should be, depending on each story and as an author grows and evolves and may want to try new things or branch into different genres. Or sometimes we just weren’t the right editorial fit. But it hurts every time. Every time, my delicate psyche wants to take it personally, convince me that I have dropped the ball (or never had it in the first place).
But those things aren’t true, any more than is the fact that I am “too tall” or “not pretty enough,” or any of the other subjective things that have been said about me or anyone else by another person. I’m good at my job, I know my craft, and I’m careful and thorough—but that doesn’t mean I’m the right editor for every author or every story.
Judgment like this is subjective—just like our business is. We can’t control how much of it we encounter.
Read more: “What Rejection Actually Means about Your Writing”
But what we do have complete control over is our reaction to it. Where rejection is a subjective matter of taste or market realities, we can refuse to take it personally or let it define our self-worth, or the worth of our work. Where it’s based on what may be realistic or valid assessments that our work may not yet be at the level we want it to be (or that it needs to be for whatever market we’re pursuing), we can take that as helpful insight to get better—to gain the skills we want to have and be as good as we hope to be.
In the dawn of my editing career after the first proofreading job I ever had, with a major publishing house, the in-house editor called me and painstakingly, painfully went through every error I’d made and everything I’d missed. It was excruciating. Embarrassing. Terrifying to think I’d blown my shot at a new career I desperately wanted.
It was also one of the most educational and edifying experiences I’ve had as an editor. It made me better, not just in what I knew to look for and then expand my knowledge on as a copy editor, but because it taught me the crucial humility that lets you come to things with an empty cup, rather than with it spilling over with all your preconceptions and no room for anything else. It (eventually) made me very good as a proofreader and later a copy editor because I wasn’t so sure I was right that I neglected to double-check my work, or to consider the author’s voice or the reader’s experience in favor of textbook “correctness,” as I talked about in last week’s post.
And not only did it not end my working relationship with this publisher, but I wound up working for them–and later with that editor at several other houses–for the entirety of my copy editing career.
Tolerate Pain
The second key element of handling rejection is to realize that you can tolerate pain, even terrible pain— whether emotional, psychic, or even physical—and I know that because you’re reading this and thus presumably alive, so pain has not killed you. And you know what they say about that which does not kill us.
If I knew back in my dating days what I came to know later in them, I might have handled breakups a little differently. So much of my fiercely dispassionate and “rational” behavior was designed to protect me from pain I thought I could not handle, stemming back to the kind of early life wounds we all sustain. I know now that I can handle it, in no small part because I divorced my self-worth from other people’s rejection. These two coping devices go hand in hand.
What else goes hand in hand with that is that our sense of self-worth grows stronger, which means we have a clearer-eyed view of what we deserve and what we will accept. By the time I met my now husband, I knew what I was looking for in a relationship and how I wanted to be treated, how I wanted to feel. From the moment we met it was very clear he was extremely into me, and nearly twenty years later I still feel the same thing from him (and, I hope, he from me).
I’m so grateful for every rejection and ended relationship before him, because without them I don’t think I ever would have found my way to him. My detached approach didn’t protect me from pain—but that pain shaped me into the person I was when we met, and made me ready to take the chance of giving myself to someone fully.
When you care more, you risk more—and the potential pain can hurt you much more deeply. But rejection helps you learn that you can go on…and you will.
And so will you, even if the pain or disappointment and hurt feel as if they will destroy you. You can tolerate rejection.
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Rejection comes for us all. You can’t change that. But you can learn to accept it—even to embrace it. I often advise sitting with the feelings and even leaning into them, as opposed to fighting or suppressing them. It hurts more in the short run, but it also defangs its bite in the long run.
Observe your reactions to it like a scientist—how it feels inside your body, how it colors your thoughts about yourself, usually irrationally. That lets you attain objective distance from rejection—it’s someone’s opinion about you or your work, but it’s not necessarily the truth. (Side benefit: It also gives you tools in your writer’s toolbox for believably, viscerally conveying similar emotions in your characters.)
When you have objectivity, you can analyze the rejection and decide what it means: Where criticism or outside observations feel valid, use it as a beacon for where you can improve your skills and your work. Where they don’t, accept that you can’t change people’s subjective opinions and let it go. They do not define you.
Rejection is simply a mile marker of where you are on your journey and what path you might take to continue to progress along it. And most of all, it’s a necessary and inevitable part of life that you are strong enough to endure, and—if you allow yourself—to grow from.
Authors, how do you handle rejection? What techniques do you have for distancing from it enough to take what is helpful and leave behind what isn’t?
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19 Comments. Leave new
While querying years ago, I took a vase and created a label titled “My Rejection Jar” on one side and “Champagne Dreams” on the other. Then, as rejections (or like I liked to call them, “no thank yous”) rolled in, I put $1 in the jar for each one. When I finally got my one yes, I took the money and bought a bottle of champagne worth that amount. And let me tell you, an expensive bottle of champagne tastes way better than the $15 one from my local grocery store! 🤣
Great way to handle rejections!
Gayle, I LOVE this! I wish I had done it when I was querying my fiction–genius. You turn something unpleasant into a treat (one that gets more and more luxurious with every rejection, in fact). Thanks for sharing this–I’m guessing a lot of authors may adopt your technique. 🙂
My sister, a dancer, has some tough rejection tales from her audition days. Now that I’m querying widely, I have my own stories to share with her, which has made for some deep dives into the subject. I’ve been spending more time meditating these days, and that centering and sense of bigness that comes sometimes helps me remember how NOT personal rejection is, no matter how shitty it feels. I’ve begun reframing the no’s as passes, which helps. I’ve also been thinking how needy we can be for validation. I’ve dubbed it Baby Bird Syndrome because when I feel that hunger and desperation, I picture hatchlings in a nest, mouths wide open. I’m in training now to be an adult female hawk, fiercest hunter in the skies. Your post today nailed it all. Thank you.
I love “sense of bigness,” Susan–I can see that that would help keep rejections in perspective. ANd I love Baby Bird Syndrome! A perfect description, one that indeed can remind us to fledge ourselves and go hunt for our own damn sustenance. 🙂 Thanks for sharing this!
Today’s lesson is so uplifting and helpful, especially in this line of work. Thank you so much, Tiffany. I believe your thoughts on this subject are right on target. A story comes to mind about a fellow watching a person trip on the sidewalk. Their first thought is, “wow, how can you be so clumsy?” Next day that fellow trips on the sidewalk himself and thinks, “who the hell put in this sidewalk?”
My first professional boss once said to me, early in my career, “If you’re not having any issues, you’re not doing anything.” And I believe that is the key to accepting rejection. It is a free education in how to improve. On a darker and more narcissistic note, my first thought when I am rejected or criticized is “who the hell are you to criticize me? Have you ever done anything of note?” One of my favorite examples is JK Rowling, who got twelve consecutive publisher rejections and turned down by agents for YEARS before finally finding a small, back-alley publisher for Harry Potter. The first print run was only 500 copies and Rowling was advised to keep her day job! These geniuses just didn’t think her book would sell. The book has now sold over 600 million copies. Many times, the critics are just losers who can’t do anything else but critique other people (ya think I’m cynical enough?).
The other important aspect to this tragic reality is that not all readers are equal. So, the key to success in this business, I believe, is finding YOUR readers (never mind that I haven’t yet done that!). Whether your writing is good or not is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve read many best sellers that I didn’t even finish, they were so boring!
Your boss is so right–in fact next week’s blog is built on that idea, that if you aren’t taking risks, trying things, you’re stagnating.
Listen, I’m an editor myself, and every time I’m edited my first thought is, “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” And then I sit with it a bit and grudgingly concede maybe they have a point or two. And then a little later I realize a lot of what they said makes sense. And by the end, with a good editor, I’m so damned grateful for every observation becuase they help me make my work better.
It’s pretty impossible to predict what will be a big seller in this business–and it’s not always based on the quality of the work. If agents and editors knew how to unfailingly pick bestsellers, that’s all they’d ever publish. It’s a crapshoot–like anything as subjective as art. Which as you point out, is a great reminder that a rejection is just one person’s opinion.
Thanks for sharing!
I’ve faced rejection numerous times in my writing career (and in everyday life) and, as you said, it hurts even now. Understanding that hurt, I think, made me a better writing teacher. I taught journalism and creative writing at the undergraduate level. Giving honest feedback is absolutely essential, but it doing it in a way that doesn’t feel like a crushing rejection to a young writer can be challenging. I’d start every semester talking about how negative feedback on a writing assignment was about the writing, not about their worth as human beings. They needed to understand that an assignment with more red ink on it than black didn’t mean they were terrible people. Editing comments were not a rejection of them or even of their writing. I always found something I could honestly say positive things about (“Hey, this line works.”, “I see what you’re saying here.”, etc.) before getting into what could be perceived as negative.
Being honest is essential. False praise to spare someone’s feelings is not helpful and can hinder a student’s progress as a writer. Harsh criticism can be crushing, also hindering their progress. Balance is needed.
I still remember the impact of my words on a young writer. She desperately wanted, no…needed, to write and had potential, but lacked confidence in her writing. One day in class she had an insight that, without thinking, I responded to. I said maybe a couple of sentences and then went on with next point we were covering in class.
After class, I was back in my office and she knocked on my door. I looked up, and there she was, in tears.
“What have I done?” I thought.
She was there to thank me for what I said in class about her. It turns out, she had been getting negative feedback about her writing for years from her family and friends. She won’t, perhaps couldn’t give up on her desire to be a writer but she was struggling with the constant rejection. It was crushing her.
A simple, positive affirmation of her insight, a comment that I made without really thinking about it, in class in front of her peers meant everything to her.
Over the course of that semester and several other writing classes over the next couple of years she make slow but significant progress in her writing. She became more confident in what she wrote and that confidence seemed to boost the quality her writing.
As a writer, I’ve felt the sting of rejection and it does hurt. As a writing teacher, I’ve seen what honest feedback, both negative and positive, can do.
If you want to be a writer, accept that you will face rejection. Accept that while you may develop a tougher hide, rejection can still sting. And realize that you need to be honest with yourself and with others, while still being kind.
I couldn’t agree more on tenor and tone, Peter. I always say creativity never responds to the stick, only to the carrot. If a writer doesn’t believe in themselves, their story, their ability, they will never be able to hone their writing. It’s key to critique the work, not the person–and to do it in a constructive, actionable, positive way–realistic and straightforward, but there are kinder, more helpful ways of offering that kind of feedback that can make the medicine go down easier.
That’s a lovely story you tell about your student. That must be the most rewarding part of teaching. I often think we can never know the influence our words and gestures and even casual interactions with others may have. I know that my own life has been deeply impacted by encounters I’m betting the other people don’t even remember.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I love every word of your comment.
When I first started submitting stories to journals and the rejections came rolling in, I’d say, “oh, look, there’s that rejection letter I sent away for!” The rejections still stung, but I was putting my work out into the world and eventually acceptances arrived, too.
That experience helped when it came time to query my novel because I knew I could survive rejections…so many rejections…and that if I kept submitting, eventually there would be a yes. It took a while. There were times when I needed a mental break from Rejection-ville, but eventually, I did get that Yes.
Sent away for! 😀 That’s hilarious. And as you say, such a great reminder that rejections are signs we’re advancing and putting our work and ourselves out there. Congrats on your eventual yes–if we stay in the game, keep improving out work, eventually they come. Thanks for the comment, Barb.
Really great piece. Thank you, Tiffany!
Thanks, Tara! Glad you enjoyed it.
I always feel stung when my work is rejected or when someone doesn’t like me but remind myself that I don’t like everyone’s work and a great many people. We live in a diverse world with plenty of room for various talents, perspectives, and personalities. Al-Anon taught me to say, “You may be right,” which has given me the freedom to shrug my shoulders and remember that I don’t have all the answers and still have a great deal to learn.
In the realm of writing, I contrast my 10-years of exploring and study with the experience and credentials of those who critique my work. This is humbling and I feel gratitude for the amazing literary community I’ve been privileged to be a part of. I have to ask myself how hard I want to work at it, if the potential rewards are worth the effort of the next revision, and what my deepest priorities are. I consider the cost/benefit in each endeavor and give myself plenty of time to decide my next step.
This sounds so healthy, Lee–all of what you said. I especially like “you may be right” (which allows for possibilities either way!). I think as soon as we stop being open to input and other perspectives and feedback, we risk stagnating. (But it can be hard to hear sometimes…) Thanks for sharing your approach.
Thank you for this, Tiffany. I started querying my latest book in 2023. I wrote 2 others before that but was quite accepting of rejection since I knew it would be a long process and I had a lot to learn. I am still accepting of rejection, I believe more as an aspect of my history and personality than is normal for most. However—oh my goodness! Time is getting short. Being a single mom in the 70s without money, putting myself through college one night class a semester, and all of the everything—well, I was over 50 before getting my MFA in creative writing. I certainly never expected success. Still, this last manuscript has been deeply worked. Over a decade. And with guidance and a professional editor. I never expected to write a bestseller; just a good book. Continuing with the queries. Your expertise and frank, open communication on the topic of rejection really helps me right now where I am. Thank you.
Wow, Lori, good for you for praying something important to you, like your MFA–and your writing. Yeah, it’s a journey, and an uneven and unpredictable one, but I can’t imagine not doing what I do–not pursuing my creative interests. I’m happy this hits the right chord for you. Thanks for sharing this!
Lovely piece – as ever!
But Tiffany you talk of rejections as though people actually get replies! You know a lot of the time most writers are ghosted.
I have this even now from my editor (who I regularly write for) and it’s been very difficult for me to process this behaviour. It’s only now (some five years of writing my column for a major UK broadsheet) I’ve had to learn it’s his overflowing inbox not me.
It’s been hard to transform myself into an Armadillo Stalker (and there’s still times I get pangs of – ‘really, you’re going to chase yet again?’) but I think it’s the only reason I still get to write.
I’ve really had to toughen up to make it!
Yes, there’s some ghosting out there, but I hope it’s a minority, and it’s good you understand the causes–the realities of their workload and the industry. Also good you keep getting back into the ring–persistence often wins the day, and that resilience and toughness you mention are key to maintaining it.