Rejection Celebration

It's said that around rejection 100 is when you'll get published, so the first 100 rejections are basically warm up which is why it's worth getting a rejection.

The years I got more rejections my writing improved that much more.

Ground Rules:
1. Do not post your actual rejection. (It's unprofessional)
2. Do not name the publisher.
3. Celebrate the rejection by mentioning the number rejection you have.

I'm currently going for: the Answer to the ultimate question of what is life, the universe and everything rejection. This puts me 10 ahead of last year, so I'm very proud of myself. I really want to get to the golden ticket 100, so I can wear the "I am a struggling writer" badge.

BTW, a non-answer does not count as a rejection and is the level of "You suck worse than a rejection."

I think it's really cool that you're making a celebration out of this and giving words of encouragment :)

I'm at rejection #0, but I'm hoping to change that soon. It's one of my goals for the next year... so thanks for this thread. I think I'll be back :)

After rejection 30+ you start begging for rejections because non-answers make you feel like utter crap. You also start developing magical beliefs around rejections as well, such as they only come out on Fridays, December is hopeless, agents hate you, someone put a hex on you so you won't get a rejection, your story is cursed (No one will like the theme anyway), you got rejected because you missed a comma somewhere... that sort of thing.

If you are checking the query tracker on Duotrope/Query Tracker every few days and comparing how the average days to rejection mounts up against your story v. the rejection rate, then you know you're in the right paranoid spot. Short of using Tarot cards to tell you when your next rejection will be, even though you don't believe in New Age and you swear they are telling you to stop being so paranoid in the first place and be patient for once, *cough* you aren't really that insane.

Maybe that's just me. Anyway, rejections validate that you are worth the time of the editor to get rejected properly in the first place. In dating speak this would be the significant other breaking up in person rather than never returning your calls again.

Though my golden rejections are the ones where there are 3+ paragraphs of comments and then sending another story to the same editor and getting nothing back though he's notorious for making comments. *.* Standard rejection was an upgrade. And the one sentence handwritten rejection. I'm proud of my rejections. Makes me feel like I am validated as a wannabe author.

about 4 broskis. And yes, I said broskis. I'm a cool cat like that.

I actually can't wait to start getting rejections lol It means I've actually gotten to the point of submitting and people are LOOKING at my stuff.

Oh, I'm sure that I'm at about...life long? Hundreds. Thousands, perhaps. ;) I think on my latest spree, though, I'm only to 40. ;) So maybe I only have 60 more to go? (Eh, probably more, but I like the thought that I'm 40% of the way there!)

That said, I mostly ignore rejections. Even personalized rejections, unless they give me advice as to how to fix something. It just seems like I'm best off spending time writing, editing, critiquing, or sending stuff out.

(And I'm convinced that most of the submissions that take a while are more due to "we were really busy" than much else. I've gotten personalized rejections on fast turn arounds, and absolutely nothing on one that hung out well past their deadline. I guess it got lost. Oh well...)

I haven't finished yet, but I'm bookmarking this thread for when I do. :P

I'm only at 1 rejection, but I was positively thrilled to get it - the editor kindly included a personal note about his thoughts on the manuscript. :)

I have been rejected once and rightfully so. Looking back the short story was a complete mess.

But like I always say... or well maybe not always... you are not a real writer until you get your first rejection. ;)

I've got a nice rejection pile but I prefer to look at the acceptance pile. It's always going to be shorter but it's less mean to me. :D

Rejection 42-- was the sweet one, because it was an acceptance. Though it's technically not a fiction story. I still need to finish more stories to get the acceptance for fiction. Still waiting on two rejections. =P I might send it out again.

I've got... three rejection letters and one non-answer. :D One of the letter said they liked my writing but it wasn't what they wanted. I'm hoping they actually meant it and weren't just trying to placate me. XD

Okay, okay, I've been trying to wrap my brain around this one, and I don't get it.

If you've gotten a hundred rejections for a piece... you're not going to be likely to magically get accepted on 109. Or 100. Or 132.

If it's not getting accepted... something's WRONG with it. It's not good enough. Either move on to something else, or improve the piece.

I'm also not buying the whole "100 rejections is when you get published." There's nothing magical about that number. It's not like the publishers are keeping track of your work and think, "Oh, I like this one, but she hasn't hit 100 yet. Let's wait on this one."

What gets you published is skill, with a healthy dose of luck. Not how many times you've been rejected.

I can get the whole idea behind it, that you should be writing and submitting, or you'll never get published.

I'm also curious about one thing. Why is it "unprofessional" to post rejection letters? I can see it being unprofessional to badmouth them... that's a great way to blackball yourself. But how is it unprofessional to post a rejection? I'm not understanding this particular piece of advice.

I've gotten one rejection on a short story. :)

I got one rejection a few weeks ago--my first, including a brief comment: "You have a lovely premise and some nice writing..." This particular agent said right out that she doesn't give reviews, so I take the comment at face value. She said she's just not the right person to champion my work. So more submissions will go out in January, after I've finished the story from this year's NaNo and put it away for a little while.

How many submissions do folks generally send out at one time?

Interesting philosophy behind this idea that getting rejected improves you. Not sure I agree but I do find it worth considering. Personally I find this level of rejection to be demoralizing. This is one of the reasons I hate job hunting and am so glad I have a job I love right now. I am really good at the sort of IT work I do, I spend lots of time working at getting better at it. I am NOT a specialist in applying for or interviewing for jobs I don't like doing it and am only ok at it. The same concept applies to writing in my view. Being rejected or accepted does not do anything to make me a better writer, writing and then editing, and then writing some more and editing more etc... does.

I am putting together my packets and information this week. I am looking forward to being rejected and being among my favorite writers when they were starting out too (that means all of you too.)

I'm on rejection 45 for my novel which began as a nanowrimo several years ago. I power-queried in the month of October thinking (rightfully) that focus on a new nanowrimo in November would take my mind off the rejections and waiting.

But now that November is over, my mind has nowhere else to go. Kimberly Dawn, thanks for starting this thread. I love the idea of 100 rejections as holding some kind of meaning. Magical thinking is indeed very critical to this whole querying process. Thank goodness for querytracker and all of its statistics to mull over.

As for rejections meaning there is something wrong with "it"--I guess it depends on what "it" you're talking about. When querying, it's really just the query that's being rejected, the nugget of an idea. In my case, my 45 rejections are accompanied by a fair number of requests for fulls or partials so I'm feeling okay about the query, despite the rejections and crossing my fingers as I try to figure out what kind of magic is going to turn those partial and full requests into offers. Until then, I'll take pride in my march toward 100 rejections.

I've gotten one rejection on a short story. I was pretty thrilled, because my rejection said I made it to the second round of selection, which I thought wasn't too shabby for a first try. Now that NaNo's done, I'm going to work some more on that piece and resubmit or submit it elsewhere.