Why Rejection is a Good Thing, or, Those Bitches Will Pay One Day!

In my email last night I had a response from the big NY publisher I’d sent my most recent manuscript to. It was a rejection, though probably the nicest rejection I’ve ever gotten. A sort of “really like your voice and your writing, not so hot on the story” thing.

I made Christine read the email first, which she begged me not to make her do. But she is a good and loyal friend, so while I guzzled half a glass of pinot grigio for courage, she did. And I think she was as sad as I was when she gave me the news.

Except that I’m not really that sad. Oh, I’m certainly disappointed – a rejection wasn’t what I was hoping for, after all. I was hoping for a multi-book contract that would allow me to walk into work and quit on the spot, but that’s not the point. The point is that rejection is sometimes a good thing.

How, you ask, can that possibly be good? I’ll tell you.

First, the story I sent in? It’s not my best work. I knew it wasn’t my best work when I sent it in (even though both Christine and I think it’s better than half the stuff out there). And though I did rewrite large sections of it to tighten the story and strengthen the characters, I simply wasn’t willing to put in the weeks and possibly months it would have taken me to really revamp things properly. I started writing this story in the fall of 2007, and it’s really been the only project on my plate since then. Frankly, I was sick of looking at it, and wanted it gone.

And really? I think my fatigue and apathy for it showed. So it deserved a rejection.

The other reason rejection is good? It strengthens me – eventually. It’s a multi step process:

• Step One: mope for about twenty minutes, during which time I’ve been known to wail and cry out to the heavens: “When will it be MY turn?!”

• Step Two: When sanity returns, I take a good look at the rejection, and what exactly the editor was saying – in this case she said she liked the voice and writing, but the story was a bit weak. Hmm…okay, that’s something I can work with.

• Step Three: Talk to Christine. She is my compass, my sounding board for all things author related, so I dump everything on her - all my fears and worries and anxieties about my work, my career, etc. And she, bless her generous soul, tells me what she sees as the problem with the manuscript, what she thinks I need to do to get it back on track, and anything else she thinks I need to hear. She tells me the truth, even when I don’t really want to hear it. And after I’ve digested all that, rehashed anything I was unclear on, maybe had a little time to mull things over, I’m ready to move on.

• Step Four: Go back to work. I take all the things Christine and I talked about, all the good points from the editor, all the things I know in my gut need to be fixed, and I go to work on them.

They say the best revenge is living well. My best revenge is writing well. I am a good writer, and I will eventually sell to New York. And when that day comes, I’ll think fondly of all the editors who rejected me, making me better and stronger in the process. And I’ll smile, and think, “I told you bitches you were going to pay one day.”

Nerves of paper

It’s a strange process for me, print publishing. Having begun my career over at Ellora’s Cave in e-publishing, I’m used to the relatively quick turn around of that. From submission to publication can take as little as a few months, and print of course takes so much longer. I first submitted my short story “The Boy Next Door” (excerpt here) to Red Sage in the late summer of 2006, after pitching it to an editor at the RWA conference in Atlanta that July (Lord, the drama I went through with that – but that’s another story). I got the word that they wanted to publish it the following spring, in 2007, and later that year discovered it would appear in Secrets Volume 27. So it’s been nearly two years since anything really significant happened with the book, and now all of the sudden it’s coming out.

Which is really exciting, don’t get me wrong. I love this story, and I feel like it represents a turning point for me as a writer. I rewrote it at least twice before I submitted it, and once at the request of the editor looking at it. I sweated blood over this story, and the sense of accomplishment when it was finished and accepted for publication was incredible. And it was good, dammit. I'd worked damn hard to make it so, and I knew the finished product was something I could be proud of.

Which, now that it’s coming out, and now that the reviews are starting to come in, doesn’t mean I’m not nervous as hell. My stomach gets that “oh, we’re on a roller coaster!” feeling, my head gets a little buzzy, and I hold my breath.

But thankfully, I don’t have a lot of time to concentrate on being nervous. There’s too much to do! All the inactivity of the last two years has been transformed into a frenzy of scheduling book signings, guest blog spots, interviews and other promotional appearances. Ordering business cards, little give away gifts for book signings, and prepping for the workshop I’m co-presenting with Christine in July (jeez, we really need to work on that this weekend!).

So not a lot of time to focus on being nervous. But that roller coaster is there, in the background, just waiting for me to open my email and find a new review.

Get over yourself, already

One thing about being a romance writer always, always amuses me – the looks on people’s faces when they ask me what I do, and get that answer in response. Usually it’s a combination of “Shut up, you do not!” and “Really? That’s so cool!”. Then they want to know exactly what I write, where they can find my work, and how much money I make doing it.

Which is none of their business, but that hardly stops them from asking. (Hell, if I only asked about the stuff that is actually my business to know, I’d be known as “that quiet girl, Hannah”, instead of “that nosy bitch”).

Of all those questions, I find the “where can I buy your book?” is often the most difficult to answer. Not that I don’t know where to find my own books, I mean difficult in the “golly, do I want this person to read my work?” sense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have people express an interest in buying my work (yes, buy my books, I need the money!). And normally, I whip out a pen and write down all the titles and were exactly they can be found (I really need to have more business cards printed up). But when my boss at my day job – a lovely woman, but somewhat conservative – asks me where she can find my books? You know, the ones with the bondage and the handcuffs and the sex toys and the anal sex? Frankly, that’s a little awkward making!

Which really, I have to get over. I’m a writer, after all, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t tell people that. I’m proud of my work, and I should be willing to express that as well And there’s no reason to think I have to shield consenting adults from reading anything, whether I’ve written it or not. Though of course I’m not trying to shield them, I’m trying to shield me – from feeling awkward or uncomfortable or whatever one would feel when a boss or co-worker gets a glimpse of just what goes on in my mind.

But that’s limiting, you know? And since I’m trying to put myself out there more, it really doesn’t make sense not to tell a reader where they can find my stuff. Especially if they’re specifically asking for it! Of course, I can always tell them that my work is fairly explicit – a small warning of this kind is really just polite, I believe (I really don’t want someone to pick up “A Toy Story” expecting something with a talking cowboy doll) – and then they can make up their own mind about whether or not to give it a go.

So I’m just going to get over myself. Or more accurately, pretend I’ve gotten over myself. I’m sure I’ll still feel awkward and a little uncomfortable at the thought of my boss reading the sex on the dresser scene in “The Devil and Ms. Johnson”, or the handcuff scene in "Jane and the Sneaky Dom", but whatever. After all, I got over my mother reading those books, and if I can get over that? I can get over anything.