Accepting Rejection

On the signal experience of the writing life

Rejections have started coming in. Some of them silent, which I’ve come to prefer to polite expressions of indifference.

I’m now in a phase of the writing life I dislike the most: trying to get something started. This involves a series of steps. The first is actually having a workable idea, whether as a matter of a manuscript I’ve already drafted or something that I think can make work, and which I regard as at least somewhat personally appealing. Then it’s a matter of trying to package it in such a way that it will attract attention—and puffing myself up as the person to do it. (Yuck.) Then it’s a matter of drafting a proposal, deciding who to send it to, and how to make the pitch. I’m really selling an idea, not a book, which will not be read by an acquisitions editor until well after acceptance (and sometimes not even then).

For projects with commercial potential, the goal is to secure an agent. I’ve had a few over the years, some of whom have succeeded in placing my work, and some have not. It’s harder to get an agent than it is an editor, and they are one more node in the chain of pitching, waiting, and trying again. When possible, I deal with editors directly, but that’s generally only possible for smaller projects where there won’t be much effort to market and publicize the book if it's actually published.

I have had lucky stretches where I’ve struck up a relationship with an editor that has allowed me to write a string of books with relatively little friction. But then they move on, retire, or just lose interest. I had hoped, when I started on this journey 35 years ago, that it would get easier. But it never really has.

I’m at an age where I know that I won’t be doing this much longer. When I stop, it will not be because I lose interest in writing. It will be because I’ve lost the will to keep clawing my way into the arena—and getting tossed out.