My First Rejection

Hi all, I'm Melinda.

:head
Welcome me to the ranks of Writerdom, I received in the space of a week not one, but TWO rejections from two separate anthologies. I was excited about the first one, but the second one made me feel... inadequate.

They were both quite polite, but they didn't tell me what was wrong with my submissions, and now I'm wondering - is my writing so unbearably bad that I should just throw in the fiction towel and settle for an ordinary life??!

Ooh, what a great way to introduce myself - with whining. I promise that this will be the last time you hear it :ssh

We won't hold you to that Melinda.

It's normal to feel down when we hear "no thanks." After 30-some years, I still get my share of rejections. It's part of the test all writers face. The ones who make it in this game are the ones who dust themselves off and keep submitting; all the while learning from their mistakes and improving their craft.

And this board was specifically created to whine. You might notice that there's more than a few posts.

Melinda, it's pretty rare for a writer to sell their first story to the first place they sent it.

If you do continue to write, expect to get dozens more. Many dozens. That's the normal course of this business.

If you really do quit... well, good for you.

Don't panic Melinda. I had 14 in one day. (Editor having a pre-Christmas clean-out of all the ones she'd shoved under her bed and forgotten about!)

It's all part of the glorious game of writing!

Cheers,
aq

:welc

Hang in there.

Rejections, Ha!

Hey, not to worry.

I've been seriously writing off and on for about 3 years now. I've been published 20+ times and have something like 105 rejections!

Or is it 115?

Maybe 125?

Anyway, it comes with the territory, it comes with your desire to say something.

I think Stephen King once wrote that he had one wall of his room decorated with rejection slips. Frederick Forsyth sent out his novel, The Day of the Jackal, 13 times before a publisher bought it.

If you really want to write, then keep going.

And someday when you're successful, you can dig those rejection slips out of your file and chuckle about them.