"Getting rejected, especially if it happens repeatedly, is not a great experience. Someone is turning you down cold, taking a hard pass, telling you: Nope. I work as a writer, so I am no stranger to rejection. I started pitching story ideas and submitting manuscripts 50 years ago, when I graduated from college. In that time, I have had two novels rejected, as well as proposals for nonfiction books, short stories and numerous pitches for articles."
"By this stage in my life, just about everyone and their distant cousin has given me a thumbs-down. I've never kept score of my win-lose ratio doing so would be deeply dispiriting. A case in point: recently, a newspaper editor I work with nixed 20 submissions in a row before saying, OK, I'll take it, to one. In 2016, no fewer than 50 book publishers vetoed my proposal for a memoir before one gave me the green light."
A career spanning fifty years produced thousands of rejections across novels, nonfiction proposals, short stories, article pitches, and essays. Rejections occur frequently — more than a hundred per year — and sometimes came in long consecutive runs, such as twenty submissions declined before one acceptance and fifty publishers vetoing a memoir proposal. Early in the career rejections felt personal and triggered emotional stages. Over time, persistent submission and experience transformed the response to rejection, culminating in acceptance of setbacks by age seventy-three. Occasional editorial frustration led to requests for less frequent submissions, reflecting the grind of continuous pitching.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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