Rejection

 

All writers, at some point, are faced with rejection. It is something I guess comes with the territory. This is something in the past that has really bothered me and left me a little despondent. In fact, this was one of the main reasons why I stopped writing completely for a while. It started to feel as if there was no point me putting in the effort and putting pen to paper anymore.

One of my first dabbles with rejection was back when I started to feel like I wanted to be properly published and began sending out manuscripts of my children's stories. I sent to tens of publishers, one rejection letter came,,,,but many did not even bother responding. I think that cut the most, almost as if they read it but it was that dire they couldn't be bothered to reject it by responding!

I did manage a "yes" letter! I was overjoyed at first, but reading on it turned out they were vanity publishers and wanted me to pay out, which I couldn't afford to do! I admitted defeat and lost the desire to think about looking for literary agents or publishers and chose to concentrate on work and family life instead.

I am still very lucky that I have self-published. It is a long, hard process (yet I repeatedly did it!) but I can at least say with confidence that I am a published author. The dream is still simmering in the background of finding my book in Waterstones, but I understand that this is something I would have to devote absolutely everything to in order to achieve!

My biggest rejection came back after being in touch with a person who told me I could get one of my books published through their small publishing company. They had a fairly good reputation and had sold a fair amount of books. There were some great writers and illustrators on board with them and it all appeared wonderful. They introduced me to an illustrator who was interested in bringing my character to life and conversations began. I was elated I was finally getting the opportunity to go somewhere with my writing and was even invited out to social occasions to meet and greet these wonderful people.

Then, out of nowhere, the calls stopped.

I couldn't get in touch with them and my emails were ignored. They had my story ( and never returned it, despite me asking for it back!) and the illustrator phoned me warning me to steer clear of them as they had ceased working with him where communication was so dire. Rejected again and again my confidence in my writing fell.

I did try again.

Another small publishing company had received a grant to publish books with the subject of Selective Mutism, which I had written about and was wanting to get out there. They even published a copy for me and again my hopes were raised that this book was going to make it to the bookshops! Months of planning and phone calls and then once again, the calls stopped. I was being taken for a ride again.... so I took matters into my own hands and self published the book. It's my best seller! I did get calls once I had done that asking me why I had let them down by publishing myself, being honestly quite abrupt.

But looking around now, there is not much if anything being published by these publishers now and I just tell myself it was their loss and my fortune that it did not happen the way I envisioned those times.

Rejection is not going to stop for my writing, I am very aware of this. But, my outlook now is completely different. I am not writing for validation now, but for my own pleasure. Of course, I do like to hear what people think of my work, but I do not let it define me anymore!!