Cheers and Boos

And why it’s okay you can’t get used to rejection

I didn’t want to talk about getting rejected, because what does it say that a professional writer can’t get her personal work to be accepted anywhere? My default thought is that I’m not good enough. Our default cultural tendency is to align with “winners,” so am I hurting my career by admitting I’m getting rejected all the damn time?

Lots of writers and other creatives share inspirational stories about all the rejections they received before they make it big. Few share what it’s like to be in the middle of it, when there’s no cute bow to tie up a feel-good story about persevering through the constant NOs to finally get that big YES. Often we only want to hear about the NOs if we already know there’s a YES at the end of the story. Nobody wants to hear about the people who tried and “failed” (at commercial success) over and over, and then they died, although these stories are much more inspirational. Why are we in awe of people who receive 37 rejections only to land a book deal, but not the people who receive 356 rejections and still keep going, never getting a yes?