No doubt about it, rejections suck the wind out of your sails. The space around you becomes void of sound, pressure builds in your ears, your head pounds. If you're a writer, (I'm guessing you wouldn't be here if you weren't) it's almost impossible not to receive a literary rejection at one point in your career. You change publishers only to reel from the sting of rejection. Or you write something outside your norm and are instantly rebuffed. If you market your work, rejections are inevitable, regardless of who you are or how many times you've been published.
But even though they can leave you devastated, what you do next speaks volumes about your character.
Here are a few famous authors who let the strength of their character speak loudly:
1. John Grisham's A Time to Kill - rejected 28 times.
2. Hermann Melville's Moby Dick - labelled as being old-fashioned.
3. Hemingway's - The Sun Also Rises, was found to be tedious. He went on to make his prose such that when readers read his work, it took their breath away.
4. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - rejected 12 times.
5. Joseph Heller renamed his book Catch-22 after 22 rejections.
6. Stephen King was told that his negative utopia Carrie would never sell.
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel - rejected 5 times - won The Man Booker Prize.
8. William Golding's Lord of the Flies - rejected for being boring.
9. Little Women, author Louisa May Alcott - advised to stick to teaching.
10. Audrey Niffenegger - 25 rejections for The Time Traveler's Wife - sold 7 million copies.
There are many more, but the thing to note is that these authors had something very important in common. Tenacity. They wrote a novel, spent endless hours polishing it, and when faced with rejection, chose to keep marketing.
Here at IWSG we want you to embrace rejections as part of a writer's life. They do not measure your worth or your ability. They are given by ordinary people like you and me, their opinions based on factors and biases we can't control. When faced with rejection, take however long to recuperate, then take you and your strong character back to the keyboard.
Happy Writing
--joylene...
who received enough rejections for Dead Witness to wallpaper her ensuite.
But even though they can leave you devastated, what you do next speaks volumes about your character.
Here are a few famous authors who let the strength of their character speak loudly:
1. John Grisham's A Time to Kill - rejected 28 times.
2. Hermann Melville's Moby Dick - labelled as being old-fashioned.
3. Hemingway's - The Sun Also Rises, was found to be tedious. He went on to make his prose such that when readers read his work, it took their breath away.
4. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - rejected 12 times.
5. Joseph Heller renamed his book Catch-22 after 22 rejections.
6. Stephen King was told that his negative utopia Carrie would never sell.
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel - rejected 5 times - won The Man Booker Prize.
8. William Golding's Lord of the Flies - rejected for being boring.
9. Little Women, author Louisa May Alcott - advised to stick to teaching.
10. Audrey Niffenegger - 25 rejections for The Time Traveler's Wife - sold 7 million copies.
There are many more, but the thing to note is that these authors had something very important in common. Tenacity. They wrote a novel, spent endless hours polishing it, and when faced with rejection, chose to keep marketing.
Here at IWSG we want you to embrace rejections as part of a writer's life. They do not measure your worth or your ability. They are given by ordinary people like you and me, their opinions based on factors and biases we can't control. When faced with rejection, take however long to recuperate, then take you and your strong character back to the keyboard.
Happy Writing
--joylene...
who received enough rejections for Dead Witness to wallpaper her ensuite.
