So I got my first rejection for my new project. Man it stinks, even if it's only one. with only one response back so far, I can't go flying of the handle yet. No need to revise, yet. Just bummed. Good thing I have chocolate. Feel free to have a round of chocolate chips for me . . . What are some good productive things that you guys do for rejections? I heard back in the old days when things were all on paper, you could flush them, wall paper with them, turn them into confetti. what about today? what are some fun ways to deal with rejection? I might start a hundred no chart and mark off until I get to a hundred (counting the nos from my last project). and then I get a prize for getting 100 nos. I'm thinking a kitten, but well, I've already got one of those and if I keep writing, in about 20 years or so I'll have more kittens than I can count and while being a crazy cat lady would be fun . . . I just don't want to roll that way. hehehe
Posted by babooher (Member # 8617) on :
Find another market, send out the manuscript, and get back to writing something else. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed.
Chin up, Jess, you're submitting and producing. That's more than most.
Posted by rcmann (Member # 9757) on :
After a while, you get toughened to it.
I'm lying. You don't But I stop and think about why I'm doing this. If I never sold anything, would I still write? Yup. So I keep writing. And since I'm writing anyway, I might as well keep sending them out the door. Or out the email. It's always nice to get new mail.
I also fix my mind on how I am going to post a printout of each story's rejection slips right beside the check I receive for it. Along with the Nebula award it wins. Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :
Yeah, it can be disappointing some writers handle it better than others but it happens to all-- that includes the pros.
But like rc--again-- I would keep writing. I am a writer so even if I had to use clay tablets and a stylist I would write even if I was the only one to read them.
I already went through that
-- writing just for me not using clay tablets. .
Posted by rcmann (Member # 9757) on :
It's not that I mind the clay so much (though it's the very devil to get out from under your fingernails) but those flimsy reed pens keep breaking and sticking in the tablet. Then you have to scoop them out, which can mess up a whole section of glyphs, and them you have to repair the damage - and the new never quite matches the old stuff - and THEN you have to carve it all over again.
Nope. Give me a goose quill and sheep gut every time.
Posted by GreatNovus (Member # 9671) on :
Well atleast you got something completed. I've been trying to do that for a few monthes and can't even get past 500 words =-/
Posted by rcmann (Member # 9757) on :
This might not help you, but when I grind to a stop I open up a file labeled 'junk' or something similar. Then I start free associating. I just put down whatever. I gripe about being mentally constipated. I growl about the weather. I come out with totally ridiculous crap. I invent profound bits of wisdom that should be inscribed in bronze over the door to every porta-potty in the country. Pretty soon I am back to writing again. It might not be good for a while, but the log jam is broken.
Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :
I said some writers handle the rejections better than others. At least for me some rejections hit harder than others also. Not sure why. Like my latest from Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Flash Fiction Online. Maybe because I got both at once maybe because I wasn't expecting them maybe because of the comment the editor at BCS made... they are one of the very magazines that gives a short explanation of what was wrong with your story.
And I'll add that from two discussions here if a magazine says you can submit more they mean it. They saw something in the writing and really want more.
Even though I'm tempted to say "yeah they really want stories with bad writing" evidently they don't say that to everyone.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)