A Downside of Being a Writer.

Rejection, rejection and rejection. We're all used to getting rejected. Some writers even collect their rejection slips in a folder or en display them on a wall. It can be disheartening when so many of them are just standard slips. ehe worst examples of rejection I had was form a publisher who had already accepted lots of wok from me. when I was n I was writing g educational material. It wasn't actually a rejection but an expression of doubt about the potential popularity of the resource. So I offered it to another educational publisher and .it became one of their best sellers This just goes to show that you shouldn't worry about rejection. The best rejection I e got was two sides of A4 typed description with more notes scribbled on by hand. This was mainly because another similar resource hadn't sold well. And once the book's out then comet he reviews: anything less than a five star review can also feel like rejection. Then there is self-rejection. Often we cringe when we reread something we wrote several years agor Rejection by yourself can be one of h harshest forms of rejection and leads to imposter syndrome. How dare I call myself a writer when I produce this sort of nonsense?

How to avoid or cope with some of the biggest bugbears of being a writer

 

1.      Your friends and family – or even you yourself - don’t take you seriously 

Don’t be afraid to call yourself a writer. If you spend time writing, you are a writer.  It doesn’t matter whether you are published or not or whether you have hundreds of five star reviews or not; what matters is that you write  So, make time to write and make sure that everyone understands that that time is precious.

2.      Rejection

It still always hurts, no matter how often it happens and no matter how many acceptances you have. It’s okay to think “Your loss, mate.” But best not to say that. Often it’s not because there is anything wrong with your writing though it’s always worth another look before you send it out again. It can be a matter of timing. It’s all so very subjective anyway. So, dust yourself off, give the work a little tweak, take an honest look at why it may have been rejected, consider it a “rewrite” and get it out there again. It’s good in fact to have quite a few things out there. A publisher may bite.   

3.      Professional jealousy

Either feeling it or being the victim of it can be uncomfortable. It’s not fair is it, that your writing friend got a three book deal and her writing is no better than yours? And it’s annoying when you get the good news from a publisher and your writing friend ignores you.

Force yourself to be glad for your friend. Your time will come.

Make your jealous friend an important part of your launch. You never know, she may be able to network at your event and get some good leads.  

4.        Running out of ideas

Often when you first start out you have tons of ideas. Then you use them up or decide that they weren’t so good after all.

Remember there are ideas are all around you. Retell an old story by taking a different character’s point of view or bringing it into the 21^st century. Take a walk and look at what folk are doing, Lots of stories there as swell. Or try a writing prompt. There are various books around full of them and you can often find them on social media.

5.      “I’m going to write a novel one day”

Says your non-writing friend.

Oh so many assumptions here: that it’s easy, that anyone can do it and that you will be pleased to read the end product of someone right at the beginning of a writing career.

Could you play devil’s advocate here?  Show a real interest. Ask them how they’ll find the time, have they planned the novel out yet, have they done any research. If they ask if you’ll look at it say that you don’t have time but point them towards someone you know who edits.  If you do that yourself discuss your rates. You might offer mates’ rates but be clear that you must make it worth your while.      

Do You Have a Submissions Strategy?

If you don’t submit, you can’t be rejected. But you can’t get published either.

Rejection is nasty – no matter how much you’re used to it and no matter how much success you’ve had elsewhere, including in being published. 

One writer I know talks about “rewrites” rather than “rejections”. This has two advantages: every piece you send out is new and you can feel better about your “rejection”. It makes sense on another level as well. Surely we all improve as writers all the time. As it often takes at least three months for publishers to decide, I frequently get work back and am not so surprised that it has been rejected. I always know I can do better. I’ve also noticed recently that my newest work is getting accepted almost at once whereas older work is taking longer. Should I be excited?   

Another writer once said “You should be like those fishermen at the end of the pier. Have about six lines cast and one of them eventually will get a bite.” Another part of his strategy is to submit to three agents and three publishers then as rejections come in he sends the script out to three more agents or three more publishers. Obviously after a while one would run out of time. However he spends a certain amount of time day on this, keeping everything on a spread sheet, the newest items at the top. He makes a living as writer from a lot of small successes. 

I too keep a spread sheet. I colour the cells red to show that submissions are out with a publisher or agent or submitted for a competition and are not available to send anywhere else. Amber means they are available and green means they’ve been accepted.  Recently I’ve been submitting to up to three competitions then to three agents and then three publishers though I don’t bother with agents for short stories. I’m still doing that for stage scripts but for my fiction I’m now publishing through my own publishing imprints. 

There is also post-publication submission. I’m now proactively submitting my own work and the works of writers I publish for awards. 

Of course you must check that your submission fits the imprint or competition. Do take advantage of the Opportunities page here to look for what would suit your work.  

And do develop your submissions strategy.           

Doing scary things

Risky business

We all know it is. If we’re honest. We spend hours, weeks, months, and even years on a manuscript and it may not be read by anyone else ever let alone earn us any money. In fact, it’s probably just as well that earlier works don’t.  

Yes, everything we do is a risk.

Breaking the mould?

A recent rejection

I’ve just had four short stories rejected. Well, sort of rejected. They came back with a lot of editorial comment, which is always something to take note of. So after the initial “they just don’t get it, do they? For goodness sake, are they expecting me to produce yet another clone? And they’ve got a typo in one of the titles – a typo not of my making” –type reaction, I calmed down and took note. Whatever I might think, this publisher is not going to publish these stories as they are now.  

Self-discipline – the number one requisite for the writer

What does a writer need more than anything else? Talent? Imagination? Time? Brain space? Faith? Hope? Probably all of these. But above all else the writer needs self-discipline. That is what creates the opportunity for these other important qualities to exist.

Talent?

What is a talented writer anyway? I’ve certainly come across some writers who seem to have a gift. Writing comes easily and without making much effort at all they produce something beautiful. Where are these writers, though, when they run out of ideas or the publisher imposes a deadline that’s awkward? In fact successful writers often even have to be more self-disciplined: it’s no longer a matter of fitting in a couple of hours after work. The only opportunity to write may come on a crowded train or in an unfamiliar hotel bedroom after a day of publicity events.

Imagination?

As time goes by we use up all of our good ideas and in fact some that seemed good actually don’t translate into a story that works. We have to force the imagination. It may seem a step backwards but trying a few creative writing exercises can help here. Writers, anyway, need time out. Time when they switch off from the constant thought about their work. It takes some self-discipline to create that. It feels and looks bizarre – just doing nothing. That then has to be combined with the other self-discipline of sitting down with the note pad or at the keyboard, even when you think you have nothing to say. Faith comes in here a little: the more often you do that the easier it gets. You know you will be able to write something.  I’ve actually noticed I often write better when I’ve felt less comfortable with it.

Time?

You can always make / find time. While the baby’s asleep. In your lunch break. After the children have gone to bed. Successful writers do. Often, once people become “full-time” writers, they actually don’t spend any more time writing than they did when they were fitting it around other things. The experience of writing may be more enjoyable, and possibly the quality is better but time isn’t the only factor there. They may well be doing other “writerly” things with the rest of their day.

The trick is not to expect too much of yourself. Don’t say you will write for an hour a day because if you’ve only got ten minutes, you won’t attempt to write. Chances are, if you try for ten minutes a day, you’ll more often than spend much longer at your desk.

Did you know that it is widely believed that you need 10,000 hours at your craft before you are ready for the public?

Brain space?

It isn’t just a question of time, though, is it? If you’ve had a fraught day, it’s hard to get into the right frame of mind to write. It is for that reason my first activity of the day is always my writing. I then feel free to spend as long as is needed on anything else. I know I am lucky: even though I am not a full-time writer, my day job is very much about my writing and if my line-manager walked into my office right now, he would have no problem with the fact that I am writing this on my work computer in my employer’s time.

It wasn’t always thus. I did my Masters in Writing for Children whilst keeping up with my own writing, entering every competition going (I don’t do that now – I’m much more selective) and being Head of Modern languages at a challenging school in Basingstoke. I worked very late in the evening, weekends and school holidays. Oh, and my own children were teenagers at the time and you know what that means.  

You have to form an hiatus between your normal concerns and what your writing needs. Tea or mediation might work. Put all of your concerns about the rest of your life on hold – write a list, maybe – if it’s on the list it is going to be dealt with – or try worry dolls. Tell the dog. Whatever works for you. Then get writing.

A colleague of mine swears by changing space. Leave the office and go home. Move to another room. Have a different desk for writing from the one where you pay household bills. I’ve tried that too – it really does work. 

A New Take on Rejections

We all get them, even those of us who have a track record in publishing. In fact there are some who have a sort of superstitious belief that you have to have a certain number of rejections before you are accepted – and then actually relish each one as it arrives as “… down … to go.”
I used to be of the school that sent out three submissions to agents and three to publishers then sat back and waited, replacing each rejection with a new submission. There is a vital flaw in this: if an agent does accept you, you may have limited some of the work they can do. The agent may now have fewer publishers to approach.
Now, I’m taking a slower tack. I’m actually submitting to just one agent at a time and when I’ve exhausted the agents, I’ll start on the publishers who accept unsolicited scripts. Exceptionally, though, I’ll send out to some opportunity that seems to fit my script like a glove. I have had one or two successes that way.
We do grow as writers and the chances are that by the time an agent or a publisher has sat on a work for three months or so, you will see the text with new eyes. A writing friend of mine used to call rejections “rewrites”. What a healthy attitude! We learn all the time. Even if we get no feedback at all from the publisher we should be capable of being our own best editors and taking a closer, fresher look at out text. If there are any pointers from the agent or publisher – great.
I find by only having each manuscript in one place at a time, I can give each rejection my whole attention and give the script some good honest scrutiny. A word of warning, here, though: don’t look at just the three chapters and synopsis. Revise the whole novel. I do believe I’ve spotted several that start off really well and then deteriorate at about Chapter Four.
Yes, our writing has to be the very best it can be all of the time. Eventually then, the rejection will turn into acceptance.

Being an Editor

It is so interesting seeing it from the other side. I have to reject really well written pieces sometimes. Often, it is because there is really no story in a piece, or not enough tension, or the pace is all wrong, or everything is great but what is produced just does not fit what we’re looking for. Sometimes, also, it’s a matter of scale. Sometimes we just happen to have extraordinarily good examples for a particular title.
Then there is the editing process itself. I think of editing at three main stages:
Overall structure
Technique
Grammar, punctuation, formatting.
The less editing that is needed the better, but if something is going to be extraordinary with a bit of work, lets do the work.
Unfortunately, you do not know until you start how people are going to react towards being asked to edit. Most writers are fine, some don’t mind the suggestions but can’t react to them and a minority become very precious about their work and refuse to budge. Note to self: never accept anything again by people from the third group and if time is pressing, avoid the second group as well. If an author can’t respond to editorial advice, the editors themselves have to make the changes. Fine, but where’s the time? And actually, the results are usually better if the editor and the writer work together to find a third, much superior way.
Then there is author anxiety. When will this book come out? Why haven’t I heard from you? When will we get the proofs? Well, actually, as soon as possible…. And sooner if I don’t stop to answer this question.
I know, too, as a writer who networks with other writers that even those published by the big guys in Random House end up doing a lot of their own marketing. We’re only a small company. The staff work for love and peanuts. We give as much of our time as we can. What we can’t do is pay Waterstones £25,000 to frontline our books. What we can do is produce wonderful books and I think, on the whole we do.