In 2018, I sent eleven stories out into the world to seek their fortunes. Two of the stories I dispatched twice, and the net result was that I received thirteen rejections.
At the beginning of 2019 I was wondering whether I should send any of them out again for another try. Was dogged determination the right approach? Or should I accept that editors had decided these pieces of fiction weren’t publishable, and move on? I’d seen writers advocating sending the same story out ten, twenty, a hundred times - and writers arguing that rejection is a clear sign that you need to rewrite. So I went looking for advice.
I found Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year, Kim Lao’s essay on embracing - with enthusiasm - rejections. Shortly after that I came across another piece (which I now can’t locate) which likened submitting stories to buying lottery tickets: the more you do it, the more chance you have.
Right, then, I thought. That’s what I’ll do.
And I started throwing stories at the world. When one got rejected, I turned it round and send it straight back out the door. I wrote new things. I polished up older things, and sent them off, too. I tried to match stories to publications, which means I’ve also read a lot of stories in a lot of magazines and journals this year, and I tried not to get dispirited when yet another editor emailed to tell me that my work was “not a good fit”.
But hey, none of them said “your fiction is awful, please desist”!
Some of them were lovely. Some editors took the time to send me feedback with their rejection (and I am so grateful to everyone who was able to do that). One story that I was particularly proud of came back time and again until I was beginning to lose faith… then an editor rejected it with a friendly and apologetic note telling me all the things they liked about it.
I kept a count of the submissions and rejections (which is, by the way, really very easy to do if you use The Submissions Grinder). Chatting to a friend, who is a proper, published and extremely successful author, I mentioned that I was trying to get up to a hundred.
“But that’s a submission every three and a bit days!” she wailed, “that’s madness!”
Well, yes. When you put it like that, it does sound a bit excessive. And unachievable. Fortunately, I didn’t put it like that.
I also didn’t quite manage it. During 2019, I made 80 submissions. I received 64 rejections… and four acceptances. The acceptances, needless to say, caused me to run round in little circles like an over-excited Labrador pup.
Of the rejections, six were personal and some included helpful and thoughtful feedback. At least two stories have been extensively rewritten as a result, and three more are on hiatus while I wonder how to address them. Many of the form rejections were on the encouraging side, saying that they had enjoyed the story, inviting me to send them further work or wishing me luck placing the story elsewhere. A few were not encouraging at all.
Kim Lao was right: embracing - and shooting for - rejection is a surprisingly freeing experience. It’s educational, and fun, and it really is just part of the process. When an editor says that they liked a piece but it didn’t quite fit their requirements, I choose to believe them. This year, I’ll be aiming once again for a hundred rejections.
And that story, the one that I was proud of, but that kept getting rejected? It was my first submission of 2020: it went out again on January 2nd, for the eleventh time. I’ll let you know ;)