What's Worse - Rejection or the Wait?

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-May-

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Do you think the waiting to hear back is worse than the actual rejection, or is the rejection worse because now you know? I haven't submitted anything myself yet, just curious.
 

Fruitbat

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If I had to pick one, I'd say rejection is worse. With the wait, you have hope. When the rejection comes, the hope is gone and you have to start all over again. But then I really only like acceptances. :)
 

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Form rejections rarely bother me. The waiting used to bother me, but I think I've kinda given up hope on my first book, so now the wait is okay. :D What's worst to me is the rejection following a glimmer of hope, i.e. a rejection after a particularly enthusiastic full request, or a rejection after the editor gushed about how much she loved it and wanted to take it up during the weekly editorial meeting (where the marketing team later said no).
 

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The wait can be exciting and full of hope, but I've had some waits that have thrown me into great despair
 

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Form rejections rarely bother me. The waiting used to bother me, but I think I've kinda given up hope on my first book, so now the wait is okay. :D What's worst to me is the rejection following a glimmer of hope, i.e. a rejection after a particularly enthusiastic full request, or a rejection after the editor gushed about how much she loved it and wanted to take it up during the weekly editorial meeting (where the marketing team later said no).

Wow, ouch! Does that happen frequently? How upsetting :(
 

Putputt

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Wow, ouch! Does that happen frequently? How upsetting :(

Hmm, I don't know about "frequently"...but I'd say it has happened more often than I thought it would. Quite a few AWers, myself included, have received rejections from agents and editors that go along the lines of "I loved the writing and the story, but this genre is just dead right now. Do you have another book to submit?" so we know we're not being rejected because the writing isn't up to par. I foolishly thought it would never happen to me, but it's happened quite a few times. There is an upside though...it's always good to get rejections like those because you know that once you've polished your next book, you'd at least have agents or editors who know your writing and are happy to read it.
 

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Thanks for the info Putputt...good to know in advance.

Out of curiosity...is there a thread anywhere that lists the genres agents are saying are "dead" right now?
 

Putputt

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Thanks for the info Putputt...good to know in advance.

Out of curiosity...is there a thread anywhere that lists the genres agents are saying are "dead" right now?

There's one in the Young Adult forum. Umm I think it's called "The Next Big Thing". But it's limited to YA. I'm not sure about the other categories.
 

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For me, the waiting is worse. At this point, with short stories, a rejection comes in and I go "Oh, okay" and send it out again. Or table it for a time and send something else out.

For novels, though? Especially with a number of professionals using the "no reply is no" rule of thumb? Harrowing. I need to know, be it yes or no.
 

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It has to be the rejection that is more disappointing, and I'm talking about partial and full types, more than anything. I think what would really upset me is the rejection on a fully-crafted R&R. But I haven't had one of those in a decade. But I know that I would feel (unjustifiably) cheated in some way if I got a reject on something I took great pains to revise and improve.

tri
 

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The rejection is the worst part for me. Then again, silence after a few nudges on a manuscript is pretty brutal too.
 

andiwrite

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Rejection is definitely worse. The rejection for the partial request I had was by far the most painful. I expect more pain in the future. *hides under blanket and cries*
 

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Rejection is the worst, although the wait KILLED me for a while when I was first subbing. Also because, for YA, it seems that often requests come very quickly or not at all (although this isn't true) and a lot of agencies are "no-response-means-no." But there's hope with submission, esp. with fulls or partials, whereas rejection is just...no.
 

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For me, it's the wait. I mean, rejections are still disappointing but I really dislike uncertainties.
 

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I like to think of waiting (and no response means no) as an eternal "maybe." Of course, even after awhile I end up marking it down as "rejected" in my list. But it's still less painful than a rejection of any sort. Better? No. Just less painful.
 

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Anything but an acceptance pretty much sucks. Novel queries and shorts combined, I'm well into the four hundreds on rejections, and I waited a full TWO YEARS to hear back on one short. So, yeah, am familiar with both sorry blights upon the human experience.

The trick is to shrug off both waits and rejections with a brief (and private) "that-sucks" rant before plowing on with new writing and fresh subs.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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Submit and forget. Don't wait, write. Life is much easier when you only worry about things you can control.
 

Becca C.

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Both are really, really hard for me. I'm going to be a mess when I start querying in the next couple months. Although I've decided that, as well as starting a new WIP, I'm going to focus on reading during that time. Hopefully that'll distract me!
 

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For me, the R's are a sucker punch to the gut every single time. As others have said, when you're waiting, at least you get to nurture hope.
 

truantoranje

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The rejection. I recently waited 296 days to hear from a market I've been trying to crack for a decade. Each day I checked duotrope.com and saw the rejections pouring in, I maintained hope. It came down to the last day of consideration, where only about 20 submissions remained...and I received a one-line form rejection letter. It was the worst day of my writing career to date. It almost felt like a betrayal.

But that's the nature of the job we chose. You wait and wait and wait only to get shot down at the zero hour. We must be sadists.
 

TerraAnn

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I think for me it's the waiting. Rejections hurt of course and suck, but at least I know. The waiting I think can be painful because it gives you hope which can be stressful because its just setting you up for disappointment. I've just submitted somewhere and I'm already going a little nuts at waiting.
 

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I am sometimes happy to receive a rejection because many agents won't even go out of their way to send one. It's like a, "I respect your query enough to reject you outright."

Classy.
 
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