What I Wish I’d Known About Rejection

Rachel Ang,  I Ate the Whole World to Find You

There’s something embarrassing, something poindexter-coded, about being a maker of comics. It’s not cool at all. If there is a hierarchy of literary forms, we inky nerds are all squelching around near the bottom—or perhaps comics are not even considered a form which might hold any literary merit. So I quickly came to the conclusion that I would likely never get to enjoy fame, fortune or even much respect and tolerance. Strangely, I never found this discouraging. It’s freed me to pursue the work I really want to create and to engage with my community in a way that is loving and goofy, without the competition or jealousy that authors of other forms might feel. This freedom has been a real blessing and allowed me to push my work in directions that are surprising, gross or just don’t fit neatly into the boxes required by traditional publishing.

Because I always assumed I would face rejection, I never applied for grants, open submissions, residencies or prizes until just recently. The thing is, I immediately found publication and (extremely) modest success as soon as I started putting myself out there. The only thing holding me back was myself.

Brandon Jack, Pissants

Shit. It never gets any easier. You can usually tell just by the first few words of the email alone that you’re about to get sucker-punched. Then you call a friend and vent about how fucking stupid the person who rejected you is. ‘They just don’t get it. Fuck them.’

But after a few days or weeks, you’ll either see why they rejected your idea, or even better, you’ll still disagree with them and visualise yourself on stage getting some award saying, ‘there were a lot of people who laughed at this idea,’ hoping that they’ll be in the crowd feeling as much of a loser as you felt at the time. Spoiler: They won’t even be thinking about you, people don’t actually care as much about these little movies you make in your head, but go on, make them. Anyway, that’s when you know you have something worth writing, because when someone has told you it’s no good, you still can’t help but write it.

‘Shit. It never gets any easier.’

Lucy Nelson, Wait Here

I was lucky enough to have a writing teacher, Olga Lorenzo, tell me that rejection is just proof that you’re actually writing. I found that framing so helpful because it made me think of rejection as simple evidence that I’m making work and sending it out into the world, which is an essential part of getting better. Of course, that’s not to say you should just keep churning stuff out or resubmitting without listening to feedback, because there can also be really useful lessons from rejection. For example, if a piece is turned down by multiple publications, and I put it away for a while and come back to it with a new perspective, I can almost always see why it might be falling short, and that gives me a useful starting point for redrafting.

Daniel Nour, How to Dodge Flying Sandals and Other Advice for Life

In our culture of highly photogenic success—book launches, prizes, new job titles, all ripe for an Instagram post—it’s easy to forget the slow, tedious work that comes first. Throughout the nineties, my swarthy Egyptian father spent decades laying electrical wire for Telecom, later Telstra, through the high-rises of Sydney. His work wasn’t obvious to anyone, but many lit offices bore his signature. It was unseen but essential. Rejection is part of the deal. The key, I think, is to keep showing up—clocking in, getting your hands dirty and finishing the job, even when no one’s watching and there’s no applause at the end of the shift. You will sweat and itch and then have to do it again the next day. Dad donned his Telecom overalls for years before he decided to work for himself.

A day spent redrafting a manuscript with no promise of publication or sending off a magazine pitch into the digital abyss: that’s the groundwork. Most of the time, there will be no answer. If you’re lucky, you might get an ‘It’s not for us, but here’s what you might do better next time.’ In my haste, I once emailed ABC’s hiring manager using his SBS counterpart’s name. He told me off. I never made that kind of screw-up again.

Rejection isn’t failure. It’s an occupational hazard—inevitable and, frankly, character-building. Success, when it comes, is just the bulb at the end of a long cord. Eventually, something will glow, maybe even blaze, and you’ll know exactly who ran the cable.

‘Rejection isn’t failure. It’s an occupational hazard.’

Jacquie Pham, Those Opulent Days

At the start of my writing journey, I had little knowledge of how the publishing industry operates—the concept of rejection didn’t so much as cross my mind. This, I realise now, worked in my favour. I didn’t hesitate to submit my stories. Of course, art is subjective, and rejection is inevitable. I received multiple passes; by the fortieth time, I was both frustrated and disappointed. I stopped counting.

I think we often expect too much from ourselves too soon, and we are convinced it’s embarrassing to fail. There’s courage in simply trying, and that effort alone is worth celebrating. To all writers who are starting out and are afraid of being rejected—I’m paraphrasing fellow author Caitlin Devlin here—don’t be afraid to be seen striving.

Georgia Rose Phillips, The Bearcat 

I think we forget that rejection is as normal for a writer as running out of slices of bread at the end of a loaf. However, I think that the challenge is reframing it in your mind as an essential part of the process and not necessarily as something personal (easier said than done). However, if you are reading this, dear writer who has most likely weathered far more rejection than you deserve, rejection is temporal—the no means not now, and not necessarily no forever. Rejections are often sent because there is more good work submitted than spaces available for publishing it.

Rejection is also evidence that you are doing the thing you love (and sometimes hate): writing. As writers, we sit down to write because we have some great curse that can only be reconciled by building whole other universes out of words. And the magic and the humanity of the process of creation are far more important than someone accepting or rejecting it. Emily Dickinson knew this better than any of us, humbly rewriting and depositing her poems into a suitcase while knowing their silent but inherent worth.

‘The magic and the humanity of the process of creation are far more important than someone accepting or rejecting it.’

Holden Sheppard, King of Dirt 

Every rejection hurts in the moment. But the more rejections you accumulate, the stronger you become—like that image of the wolf with so many arrows in its back, still standing tall. Rejections suck, but they make writers more resilient, and with resilience comes the confidence to write more boldly, submit more widely and persevere until we find the right home for our work.

One rejection I received from an agent for my unpublished fantasy manuscript in 2017 cut me deeply. The agent said my writing was only ‘competent’. He forced me to look at the manuscript more closely, and I realised he was correct: that novel lacked heart. I put that novel in the drawer—it’s never been published—and set about writing something with emotional punch and vulnerability. That novel was Invisible Boys, and it went on to get published, win awards, become an Aussie bestseller and get adapted into a TV series. In hindsight, I’m grateful for that 2017 rejection—it helped nudge me in the right direction! And it helped me recalibrate how I view rejections now: they are just necessary stepping stones on the path to success.

Jenny Valentish, The Introvert’s Guide to Leaving the House 

Rejection needs to be factored into your weekly routine in the same way that invoicing is. Your career will always be in flux, and the industry will always be in flux. Once-eager publications and publishing companies will be subject to personnel, budget and format changes (which will break the hearts of your commissioning editors), and those changes make it hard for loyalty to thrive. This just means that a writer has to stay nimble, not taking a good wicket for granted and not taking it personally when a book or story doesn’t get accepted. Pitching a brilliant idea over and over, fine-tuning it as you go, has to be factored into your schedule, as do rewrites. Pivoting becomes a fine art.

Xiaole Zhan, AUP New Poets 11

I remember coming across Kim Liao’s highly popularised idea of aiming for a hundred rejections a year. I’m always a bit cynical about ‘life-hack’ literary advice, but I’ve found myself starting to keep track of rejections for the first time, and it’s helped me reframe my attitude. Rejection always stings, but keeping track of how many rejections I’ve stacked up also allowed me to realise that I’ve gotten more rejections simply because I’ve been applying to more opportunities. I went through the annual start-of-year grants rush for the first time this year as an early-career writer, trying to find money to spend time in my ancestral hometown in Guangdong to research for my debut book. I received rejections for every application except for one, but the one successful application was a prestigious fellowship with a significant sum of money. From the outside, seeing a writer’s name on a list of grant recipients or a literary prize, it’s hard to imagine the stack of rejections every writer gathers, but that’s usually the reality. Behind every success, there are many, many more rejections.