A Real Rejection
The other day I received a rejection email that hurt. It was from a small publishing company that liked my story, requested more chapters, and said they would work with me to publish. It wasn’t my ideal choice for a publisher, but I thought it would be a good one. I know people who have published through them. After weeks of back and forth emails getting them more chapters to read, they sent an email that sent a shiver down my spine. Basically, they said that my book required more editing than they were capable of giving me since they were a non-profit and they were going to have to pass. After closing my eyes and fighting the sinking feeling that I would never get published in my life, I replied asking if they might give me some specific feedback. They responded with the specific feedback. Sometimes feedback is more of a personal preference and easy to ignore, but sometimes it is an actual problem. As soon as I read it, I knew it was an actual problem, but I bristled. I cried. I thought of all the years I had been working on it, the many redrafts and reconceptualizing. The edits they were saying I needed would require a lot of work and I wasn’t ready to work on it like that. I had moved on to a new book and wanted to leave that one alone.
When I was in college, I took a graphic design class that pushed me. I would work on an assignment for ten hours or more only to have the teacher criticize it. He would mark through my work saying it wasn’t good enough. Sometimes he said that I needed to start over completely. It irritated me. Couldn’t he see that I stayed in the library till it closed multiple nights in a row to get it done? To my untrained eye, my work was as good as anyone else’s. Or, even if I didn’t think it was that good, I thought it was good enough and why couldn’t he just see that.
Instead, the teacher critiqued my work with the standard of an actual graphic designer. I took his feedback and started over, redoing all the work. In the process, my eye became sharper. I understood what he was saying on a deeper level. When he said that the font needed to be changed, it wasn’t a personal vendetta against me, but concern for the end product I was creating. There are universal design laws that must be kept, or broken intentionally, and I was learning them. My art improved and my self-confidence, as well as my own personal standards for my own work, greatly improved.
When I get feedback like that in other areas, now especially in writing, I have to go back to that moment. I feel my way through the frustration, breath it in deeply till I can see the truth of their words. It is only then that I can see my work from the outside and make changes.
I sent my manuscript to an editor (Britney Waldrop), who as read it before. I told her to look at the feedback from this small press and give me some insight. She has given me more detailed feedback that I can work through. My motivation is that this book, and future books, will be even better and more engaging than before.
