Tag: rejection

Optimism and the Aspiring Author




I wish I had more patience.

I’m playing the long game, wanting to be traditionally published. And it’s a long game, because the market is glutted with people like me who want to be published. The market is fickle, as it wants to pick books without risk. And the market is shrinking, because there are fewer readers.

I have invested a lot in my books. Developmental edits, beta reading, and sometimes massive rewritings. I’m now at a point where I don’t think I can improve them any more. (I could, of course, be wrong). I have gone through cycles of rejection, and I don’t know if I can go through it again.

But I do, because I have optimism. Every morning I wake up believing that my life could change in one day. I’ve heard enough stories where someone’s life changes tragically in one moment; I believe it’s just as likely that my life can change for the better. So as long as I have my works in the hands of agents and publishers, I can hope.

Rejections and Cognitive Distortions

This is probably a rerun from way back when, but:

Sometimes I wonder why I put my books out there.


Ask any writer after a rejection, and you’ll probably hear the same misgivings. I myself been rejected by so many agents that I thought I’d get over this. I haven’t. 

I think the two things that keep me from quitting are: 1) my short memory, and 2) noting the negatives — cognitive distortions — are not real.


Cognitive distortions
Cognitive distortions are statements we make to ourselves to define our reality — but in actuality just make us miserable. (Positive Psychology.com. 2019)

For example, I just went through an online pitch contest where writers try to get attention from agents about their books. I did not succeed. So I combined this with all the rejections I’ve gotten and started talking to myself like this:
“I’m a bad writer.”
“Nobody likes my writing.”
“I’ll never get published.”

These are all examples of cognitive distortions. 
“I’m a bad writer.” — All or nothing thinking. “I’m either perfect or bad.” Also labeling.
“Nobody likes my writing.” — Mind reading. How do I know this?
“I’ll never get published.” — Fortune-telling. If I can predict the future, can’t I win the lottery? 

In reality, I can’t predict the future, Nor can I be the worst writer ever if I got through college. I can name people who have liked my writing. These realizations are known as contradictions.

How to start:
It helps to write this down on paper. Here are the steps:
1) Write down the thoughts that are bothering you
2) Identify the cognitive distortions. If  you look for “cognitive distortions” on Google, you will find many sources. My favorite resource is here.
3) Come up with an alternative thought: 
“I’m a bad writer.” — “There are people better and worse than me”
“Nobody likes my writing.” — “I have had short fiction and poetry published”
“I’ll never get published.” — “Never is a long time; and if you never get published, it might have nothing to do with you”
4) The important question: what is my next action?
When your mind is clear, you can determine your next move to live your life most authentically.

What now?
Get the list of cognitive resources and the PDF journaling sheets at the site below. Do this when you’re feeling negative about life. Keep it up. After a while, you’ll only need to do this as a reminder.


Positive Psychology.com.(2019). Cognitive distortions: When your brain lies to you (+ PDF Worksheets). Available:

Writing for Myself

I think I’ve passed through the other side of my dejection about not getting published. I’ve received enough rejections (for novels and poems and short stories, by publishers and agents and Pitch Wars). What does that leave?

Writing and improving for myself, primarily. Not letting my self-esteem be at the mercy of publishers and agents. Of course, I would like to be published (I have a couple little things published, and it’s fun).  I’d like to have a novel published. I’d like to be published somewhere that people actually read.

I’m willing to keep trying, because the rejections aren’t really that painful anymore. I can take more until my writing hits the right person, whoever that is. 

Wish me luck.

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I took off yesterday from writing the blog because I’M ON VACATION FOR A WHOLE WEEK! 

Ok, I got that out of my system. 

I’m a writer, though. I have things to do over vacation:

  • Edit one short story for a short story contest.
  • Edit a couple poems (minor edit)
  • Edit Whose Hearts are Mountains, which seriously needs a developmental editor because I don’t know if I’m going in the right direction
  • Rethink this whole writing thing (which I do once a week).


I don’t know where I’m going

I know I’ve been writing very boring posts lately, and for that I apologize. My justification (not excuse) is NaNo and projects.

What have I been thinking about lately? NaNo and projects. Ok, that’s not a good start to a blog.

I’ve also been thinking about my relationship with writing. On one hand, I’ve hit some very positive rejections that have 1) given me ideas of how to improve, and 2) have said positive things about my writing. 

I might actually be taking my writing more seriously than I have before, and with that I wonder more if I can get my writing to the point where it deserves being published. I don’t know if I’ve gotten there with my stories, and I wonder what it would take to get to that point. 

I still have some big things out there — I have Prodigies at DAW, Apocalypse at Tor, Voyageurs in a novella contest, a submission to Pitch Wars, and — well, I don’t think I will win any of these. And I don’t know what to think about this. 

It’s November First?!?

I’m sorry for not writing yesterday — I was pretty sick.

I’ve been fighting a cold or something over the past two weeks, but yesterday morning it went supernova — I ached so badly I couldn’t move, I coughed constantly, had a sore throat — so I stayed home and slept for 20 hours. 

Only to wake up on November 1st and realize — OMG, it’s NANO TIME!

So today, as promised, I have to spend at least two hours today editing*, something I have been avoiding up till now. Two hours. When am I going to do this? When?

Deep breath. I have time after 2 PM today, being that it’s a Friday and all and there won’t be any meetings today. And I have a place — the Board Game Cafe.

All I need now is the initiative.

Oh, by the way, I had a poem make Submittable’s Rejection Horror Stories 2019. (Mine is the poem).


***

* I’m a rebel this year, doing some much needed editing instead of writing something new. On NaNoWriMo, I’m lleachie.

Sorry for the Debbie Downer

I got a big rejection last night — CRAFT’s first chapter contest. It would have provided lots of opportunity and support toward publication of a book. It was a long shot submitting, because I think they favor literary fiction and I write genre/literary crossover. 

It was worth a try. I’m trying to analyze whether the effort I spend writing and improving is worth the results. Whether the money I invest (in dev editing, in reader’s fees for short fiction, for writers conferences) is yielding enough return on investment. Whether staying in writing because I’ve invested so much is just the sunk cost fallacy in action. 

I keep going back to writing, fancying that it will be my retirement career. But for it to be a career, I have to go someplace with it. I need to be published; otherwise it’s just a hobby.

I really have to figure this out.

Experiment results:

About a month ago, I made the vow that I would go about writing as if I’d already been published. Here’s the result: 

I will get back into novel writing for NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I’ve already committed to a novel — I’m going to tackle the book I’ve been postponing for the longest time, Gods’ Seeds. So if I don’t start noveling (is that a verb?) before then, I will go back to writing novels in November.

Yes, I was considering quitting, but my developmental editor is suggesting I keep writing, and I respect her judgment. I think it’s good to have external voices to help counter the dreary self-doubt that writers have a tendency toward. 

My dev editor also suggested trying out for Pitch Wars, which is a competitive process by which one can get an intense pitch workout. I will be trying for this, because I have the desire to improve.

And I’m still submitting, mostly short stories and flash fiction, but also queries on Apocalypse. I may send out to one or two novel publishers this weekend because I expect a rainy time. 

In writing as if I’ve already been published, all I’ve lost is the negative self-talk. I think I could like this.

Odd Place

I’m in an odd place about my writing.

Weeks ago, I gave up the need to be published. Since then, I’ve been writing stories, submitting those and poetry to various outlets, where they may or may not get published, may or may not get any readership if they’re published.

I’ve gotten a few more rejections from agents for Apocalypse. It doesn’t bother me much.

It seems to me that I poured myself into my writing because I wanted recognition. I wanted readers. I wanted to get a shiny star for publishing.

I had an empty checkmark on my bucket list.

Now that I have gotten runner up on a fiction contest and about to see some flash fiction in publication, I’ve checked that box.

My one worry is that I don’t feel as possessed about writing. No dreams of being published dangled before my head like the proverbial carrot. I could never quite reach it. I feel like maybe I’m slowly giving up, and I don’t know if I want to do that.

I guess seeing how this evolves will be another adventure.

Shedding illusions

This blog entry meditates on my horoscope from Rob Brezsny, whose horoscopes are in and of themselves meditations. It can be found here:

I have lost many illusions about writing, some of which are embarassing to admit, although I will admit them anyway.

  • I thought people would be impressed with me for being a writer.
  • I thought it would be easy to get published because I’m a good writer and because I’d been writing to refereed journals for years with little difficulty.
  • I thought my first draft was my final draft because I make very few grammatical and spelling errors.
  • I thought my talent would shine through mediocre query materials. 
  • I thought writing a blog would get me lots of followers.
  • I thought I wasn’t a real writer because I hadn’t gotten published.
  • I thought my writing must be bad because agents didn’t bite.
  • I thought I should quit writing because I hadn’t been published.
  • I thought the accomplishment was in publishing, not writing.
  • I thought writing would change my life.
I dreamed of book release parties (I still do), meetings with agents, having my picture on the back of a book cover, book signings, ex-boyfriends having to choke on seeing my name on a book cover (I have always dated nerds.) These, especially the ex-boyfriend part, are also illusion for now. I may or may never get to see the reality.

These were the illusions I have shed over the past several years. Except the last one, because I think writing must have changed my life, but not in big momentous ways.

Where to from here? 

The Changing Seasons of the Academic Calendar


It’s August first, and I can feel the season change even though it’s warm outside. That’s because I base my seasons on the academic calendar, and there are only three seasons: fall semester, spring semester, and summer.

I’m approaching the end of summer right now, so I’m beginning to prepare for fall semester, updating my online classwork, getting a new work computer, finishing up my internships, cleaning up and rearranging my office (already done!), setting up my calendar … the rhythm of life changes.

Fall semester is the beginning of my calendar, as it brings new things: A shiny new school year, new students, beginning meetings (ok, not everything about the new school year is wonderful). It also embraces football (American) tailgates, dressing up for Halloween, the feast of Thanksgiving, the Christmas season and its associated rituals on a college campus. 

Spring semester starts with winter — the Christmas snow is now slushy and dirty, the beginning of the semester meetings seem like same old same old, and Valentine’s Day as a holiday just doesn’t measure up to Christmas. But then come Spring, and the unexpected: the Northwest Yeti comes out of hiding, there’s a big cow statue in front of the Hy-Vee grocery store, art installations spring up like mushrooms, and students plunge into the chilly waters of Colden Pond for charity. 

Then we come back to summer, where things slow down, and faculty spend their summers teaching abroad or taking on interns or taking summer classes or teaching short, intensive summer classes. And going on vacation. My summer has been spent supervising interns, taking a class for my certification in Disaster Mental Health, doing moulage (simulating physical injury and illness for training purposes), and taking a mini-vacation. And writing. 

So that is my year, and the signs of a seasonal change keep popping up: the announcement of beginning of semester meetings, the back-to-school sales, discussions of how well our football team may do this year (we have one of the best Division II teams in the nation, which for those of you in other countries would be like a lower division soccer league), and emails from students trickling in. 

It should be a good year.

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Yesterday was a tough day — two rejections (one agent, one submission of a short story). I don’t feel so bad about the short story rejection, because I think my choice of genre (fantasy) might keep my work from being accepted by some markets. And there’s a lot of competition.

I need to toughen up about agent rejections. 

I truly believe at this point that I’m getting rejections because of something as simple as fashion, and I will believe that until someone says otherwise. I’m willing to improve, but I’ve improved as much as dev editors, beta readers, publishing coaches, and my own judgment have allowed me to.

Please wish me luck. I’m serious.