I wanted to begin this month’s column with a quick update: After tons of social media blowback and a number of online petitions, Scholastic backtracked on its decision to segregate controversial books into an optional “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice” bundle. In her letter announcing the reversal, Scholastic President Ellie Berger apologizes for the decision and promises to “find an alternative way to get a greater range of books into the hands of children.” Reiterating the commitments of Scholastic’s mission statement, Berger “pledge[s] to stand with you as we redouble our efforts to combat laws restricting children’s access to books.” Neither Berger’s letter nor the company’s recent update offer a clear way forward however. Indeed, one of the possible interpretations of the promise that “The Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice collection will not be offered” is that neither will any of the controversial books its was supposed to contain, but this at least looks like a step in the right direction.
For the rest of this month’s column, I’d like to take a step or two in the direction of levity and reassurance. After a few months of disappointing news and dour meditations on the increasingly fractious publishing community, I thought I’d be nice to offer a bit of levity, even joy as we set the clocks back and leave the spooky season behind for the dark days of eggnog, family gatherings, football, and manufactured merriment. And, as is my fashion, I thought, what better way to raise the mood around here than by focusing on the ever-threatening, never-forgiving, crushing certainty of rejection that underscores the writer’s life? Old Ben Franklin said nothing is certain except death and taxes, but the writer can add another certainty to that list: rejection. But it doesn’t have to feel like artistic death. To paraphrase Saul Bellow, to hell with rejection!
Last month I said that fear might be the dominant emotion in the writer’s life, and most of that fear boils down to fear of rejection. We worry others won’t see the value in our work, that they’ll find it trite or cliché or too weird, that they’ll see through the words into our very souls and declare, “Not for us” or “Thanks, but no.” And it does hurt to get rejected, to receive that damning declaration from an editor you admired that your work has no home among your valued peers. At worst, rejection can feel like a confirmation of your own certainty that the work is no good, but there is an upside to rejection, too.
The internet quote pages are full of writers singing the praises of rejection. We’ve all heard some of these famous stories. Stephen King pounded a nail into his wall to collect rejection slips like trophies; when the slips weighed down the nail, he replaced it with a spike. Robert Pirsig’s bestselling Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times before it became required reading among high school potheads. Dick Wimmer called himself the world’s “most rejected novelist,” and racked up more than 160 rejections for his novel Irish Wine, which The New York Times ultimately hailed as a “taught, finely written, exhaustingly exuberant first novel.” You must “reject rejection,” Jack Canfield advises; “You will receive some measure of success—but only if you persist,” assures Isaac Asimov; “Rejection can simply mean redirection,” Maya Angelou proclaims.
Every writer must develop a resistance to rejection. I’ve always tried to remember that rejection is really the primary mode of cultural consumption: Every novel you’re not reading, every movie you’re not seeing, every song you’re not listening to is de facto rejected by you and just about everyone else at every moment of the day. A slip confirming its rejection by any given reader is really only confirmation that your work exists and that you had the courage to submit it. Having sat in the editor’s chair at more than a few publications, too, it’s also helpful to keep in mind that the number one reason, by many magnitudes, that work is rejected is simply that it doesn’t fit into the current issue, the publishing plan, or the vision of the magazine overall. These factors, more than just about any other—even quality—tend to drive editorial discussions: So, finding publication is as much about finding the right venue and a sympathetic editor than it is making high quality work. I assume you’re doing that anyway.
But how to cope with rejection when these philosophical balms fail to salve the wounds? For particularly resilient strains, rely on a set of coping strategies to soften the blow. Memory hole those rejections into the void of your email trash can! Follow Bukowski’s advice and ram those poems right back into the inbox of some other editor at some other magazine. Keep the work in circulation and continue work on the next project. Step away from the computer, put down the pen, and nick a piece of Halloween candy from the kids’ stash. Meditate or try a warm bubble bath. Get out for a run, lift some weights, or take a swim. Some say a hike is nice, others like to binge (although, as Hitchens said in later life, if you can hold off on the booze and smokes, you’re well-advised to do so). Nowadays we call it self-care, and it does have a subtle magic. But there are creative ways to handle rejection, too.
While you should never write back to rejecting editors with your brutal takedown of their judgment, you can certainly write angry messages you never send. Perhaps your next story needs a flailing failure of a fiction editor who ends up tumbling through a bottomless pit? Maybe your next novel will take the whole industry to task ala George Gissing’s New Grub Street or R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface. Many fine poems have been on and out of rejection, such as Elizabeth McFarland’s “The Rejection,” Harrison Wickless’s “Rejection Slip,” and Robert Creeley’s biting “Self-Portrait.” Indeed, you might have already seen the social media trend that inspired this piece: Last week, hundreds of writers posted black out poems made out of their rejection letters. They have a great way of toning down the seriousness of the whole business, cutting through the cant, and reminding us that rejection just doesn’t matter in the end. Here are some of my favorites:
There are many more in this thread, and I encourage you to try one of your own. It’s a great way of putting rejection to rest. I’ll close this month with one I made along with my encouragement to keep writing and keep sending out the work. As John Berryman encouraged W. S. Merwin: Paper your walls with rejections. Nothing ever comes from not trying!