In the business of being a writer, rejection is something you have to learn to handle from the first time you submit a story or a poem to the market. It’s a rare writer who never receives that email containing something like, ‘…unfortunately, while we enjoyed your story, it’s not what we’re looking for at this time…’ or ‘Thank you for giving us a chance to read your story. We received over 500 submissions, and had to make difficult choices…’
As I write this, I’m coming off two rejections yesterday and a third this morning for my own work, followed by a funding rejection for a community project I’m working on. So the subject is very real!
No one likes being rejected—it stings—and it’s hard not to take it personally. After all, you wrote the best poem/story in the world and they had the audacity to say No!
The thing is…it’s not personal! It’s about the publication: its market, its theme, the cohesiveness of the contents, the relative quality of the submissions, the fit, the preferences of the editorial team, the space available etc. It’s not unusual for editors and publishers to receive hundreds of submissions for limited publishing space (made worse by the explosion of Generative AI).
Those of us who have yet to reach the heady heights of being invited to submit are all chasing the crumbs. A recent piece of mine made it past the first cut and onto the short-list. That short-list was 80 submissions long with around half of those having to be rejected—mine included.
Having a submission accepted is the exception!
So, if you’re enduring rejection after rejection then yay you! Because it means you’re writing and submitting and that’s most of the struggle.
Rejections are the norm and you need to find your own way to handle them, but here’s some tips that might help.
Unless you’re keen to burn all your bridges, never, ever write an abusive email in response to a rejection. Editors and publishers talk to each other and your name will be shared. The only time I ever respond to a rejection is if the editors have offered up specific comments on the piece, and for that, I might thank them for their time and thoughts.
If you need to, go ahead and take a minute to breathe, go outside for a walk, or pour yourself a glass of wine—I do! But, once you’ve shaken off the disappointment, get back to it. Don’t let rejections derail your writing or submitting. For every rejection I get, I aim to send out a new submission—for balance.
If I can’t find a home for my short stories and poems then I tuck them away in a file for ‘later’. None of my darling stories and poems are ever killed off entirely. For me, ‘later’ could be rewriting, re-editing and submitting to a different market or keeping it for my own collection of short stories.
This year, I set a personal goal of submitting at least two or three stories and poems to a paying market every month. One signal of being on track is the steady flow of rejection emails I’m receiving. So tomorrow, I’m going to check out the market for calls that catch my imagination or line up with stories I’ve already got tucked away, and I’ll get right back into writing and submitting.
As I write this, I’m coming off two rejections yesterday and a third this morning for my own work, followed by a funding rejection for a community project I’m working on. So the subject is very real!
No one likes being rejected—it stings—and it’s hard not to take it personally. After all, you wrote the best poem/story in the world and they had the audacity to say No!
The thing is…it’s not personal! It’s about the publication: its market, its theme, the cohesiveness of the contents, the relative quality of the submissions, the fit, the preferences of the editorial team, the space available etc. It’s not unusual for editors and publishers to receive hundreds of submissions for limited publishing space (made worse by the explosion of Generative AI).
Those of us who have yet to reach the heady heights of being invited to submit are all chasing the crumbs. A recent piece of mine made it past the first cut and onto the short-list. That short-list was 80 submissions long with around half of those having to be rejected—mine included.
Having a submission accepted is the exception!
So, if you’re enduring rejection after rejection then yay you! Because it means you’re writing and submitting and that’s most of the struggle.
Rejections are the norm and you need to find your own way to handle them, but here’s some tips that might help.
Unless you’re keen to burn all your bridges, never, ever write an abusive email in response to a rejection. Editors and publishers talk to each other and your name will be shared. The only time I ever respond to a rejection is if the editors have offered up specific comments on the piece, and for that, I might thank them for their time and thoughts.
If you need to, go ahead and take a minute to breathe, go outside for a walk, or pour yourself a glass of wine—I do! But, once you’ve shaken off the disappointment, get back to it. Don’t let rejections derail your writing or submitting. For every rejection I get, I aim to send out a new submission—for balance.
If I can’t find a home for my short stories and poems then I tuck them away in a file for ‘later’. None of my darling stories and poems are ever killed off entirely. For me, ‘later’ could be rewriting, re-editing and submitting to a different market or keeping it for my own collection of short stories.
This year, I set a personal goal of submitting at least two or three stories and poems to a paying market every month. One signal of being on track is the steady flow of rejection emails I’m receiving. So tomorrow, I’m going to check out the market for calls that catch my imagination or line up with stories I’ve already got tucked away, and I’ll get right back into writing and submitting.
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