Hi Flyers:
“You can be as mad as a dog at the ways things went, you can swear and curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.”
~Captain Mike’s death speech in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I was as mad as a dog. I swore. I cursed the fates. It wasn’t a battle on the high seas but the rejection of a novel I felt sure would sell.
Here’s what the powers that be at over two dozen major publishing houses had to say:
2020-2021
The Home Tree was in it’s ninth revision when the world tipped off its axis into lockdowns. My agent and I forged ahead driven by the motto: "Done, dusted, and sold.”
Meanwhile, my daughter lost her senior year in high school and all social connections. Then, she faced a difficult health decision before college, one that conflicted with her pre-existing condition.
Engaged in complex, life-altering discussions, I was far less than my best self—yelling, crying, pleading (and this was mostly me, not her) fueled by my maniacal desire to finish and sell the damn book.
Then came the rejections.
Game over.
Today: The Lessons of Rejection
#1: Feel the pain. There is clarifying pain in rejection, especially around a project that’s taken years. If you can face that sharp pin-point of rejection, you will emerge a better person—and writer.
#2: Change. Be honest with yourself. Was it about the book, some inhumanity within yourself, or a combo of both?
#3: Distance. Walk away until the voices go silent—your agent’s, your editors’, your own.
#4: Regroup: Eventually, decide if you want to take another swing at it or be done. If it is the former, re-group from the initial enthusiasm that made you want to write the book in the first place. Cultivate that enthusiasm, nurture it, see how it has changed, evolved, matured.
#5: Go. Get back to work!
2023
I applied all five lessons. The first two were brutal but transformative: I moved to a cabin in the woods, deepened my spirituality, healed deep set reactive patterns, and atoned with my beautiful daughter.
Last summer, I took my next swing and rewrote with only two POV characters and a tighter plot. At 70,000 words, it fell apart. I realized I was writing about Catholic characters in a Catholic country and knew very little about Catholicism. This meant reading the Bible and the Catechism which took the rest of the summer. Then I discovered my years of deep, unhealed fury at that same Catholic Church, and even God. I had to stop writing and do more internal work around spiritual reconciliation and growth.
2024
This summer I started again with my favorite and primary character, Vincenzo. I am now rewriting his story that parallels my own: Immature spirituality and a hard conversion via the pain.
New title, new focus, new plan.
I’m 46,000 words into the re-write of The Man Born with Seven Shirts. Which is dialect term for someone who is born lucky.
I’m now re-reading all those editorial comments from 2021, ready to fully digest the important feedback offered by the pros.
All of this personal growth, reconciliation, maturing of my creative process, and overcoming setbacks happened thanks to rejection.
Today, I’m no longer cursing but giving thanks.
Your Turn:
When were you rejected in a way that brought you to your knees?
What did you do with that moment?
Post in the comments and I will write back.
Thanks for being with me, Jennifer 🐦⬛
Shattered Dreams, Reforged Purpose: A Literary Crucible