Guest Author - Lucinda Moriarty

Writers know that rejection is an occupation hazard; however, awareness of this fact doesn’t make rejection any easier. When I started writing, I had my work rejected many times. Sometimes, I was so shattered by the event that I retired the manuscript to the back of my closet. And if you saw my closet in those days, you’d understand the severity of that statement. But hiding my work from the light of day wasn’t the worst of it; I started to question my abilities and considered giving up.

Rejection does its worst damage when it deters you from trying to achieve your goals.

In my quest to put a positive spin on rejection, a spin that even my hefty ego will accept, I developed the method below for coping with rejection. Now, will any of the following suggestions make you look forward to rejection? Uh, no. But they might help you keep a positive frame of mind so you can continue to create and submit manuscripts which is integral in achieving your ultimate goal of selling your story.

The first step is to borrow from the circus and learn to juggle. Whereas a juggler strives to keep objects moving through the air, a writer needs to keep manuscripts in circulation. Oddly enough, the more manuscripts you have “out there” the less the disappointment when one comes back to you. By keeping as many stories in submission mode as possible, hope is still alive.

Step two is designed to keep moping to a minimum. Obviously, a requirement for receiving a rejection letter is – at least for me – a little sulk time. To avoid extensive brooding, plan ahead. Before sending out a manuscript to publisher #1, prepare a second submission packet to publisher #2. If/when a manuscript gets rejected by publisher #1, that same manuscript is ready to be sent out to publisher #2 that same day. That way, you can only afford to be in a funk for a few hours instead of a few days, weeks or months.

The final step fulfills a need for some positive reinforcement. In my writing space, I have made room for a bulletin board. There, I’ve tacked a list of all of my completed manuscripts. I also have a packet of stickers with brightly colored smiley faces on them. Each time I receive a rejection, I slap one of those stickers on the list next to the title of the rejected manuscript. Childish? Yes. Corny? Absolutely. But psychologically it takes some of the sting away. Despite the fact that I didn’t make a connection with a particular publisher, I still achieved something very significant – getting my work out there for consideration. And above all, this is cause for celebration.

If you have other ways to cope with rejection creatively, please share them with your fellow writers in the Writing for Children forum.