Write Words

I’ve taken an informal survey and discovered that 90% of writers throw away or delete rejections within seconds of reading them. Trust me, I’ve gotten some trash-worthy rebuffs: A letter beginning, “Dear Miss Dion,” for an article I wrote about my marriage; “We’re just not excited about your idea,” for my book proposal; and “Alas, we cannot work together,” from a quirky agent.

I hate rejections. But I save every email, form letter, personal note and check-marked postcard I receive and you should too. Writers can learn, benefit and even get encouragement from rejections. Here are four reasons to keep every rejection you receive.

1.     Taxes - Let’s start with the practical. When you earn money as a writer, the IRS may come to visit in the form of an audit. Legally, they can look back years from now for an accounting of your writing business. If for nothing else, save those rejections to prove you have a legitimate business.

2.     Statistics - If I send out 100 articles and have 60 rejections, I know that 40% of what I send out sells. With that information I can predict my income. I can also see patterns in my submissions - are all of my personal experience pieces selling while my how-to articles aren’t? Does one editor love my fillers but none of my full length articles? Does this market accept all of my reprints but few originals? These statistics are ammunition to make the best use of my writing time.

3.     Encouragement - Don’t get me wrong, I would much rather receive an acceptance than a rejection any day. I don’t like rejections, but some of them are the most encouraging words I’ve received from editors. “Wonderfully done, I’m sorry we can’t use it,” or, “Beautiful writing. Thank you for the opportunity to read it, but we have an overstock of articles.” Sometimes these notes come just when I’m ready to give up or when I need a little extra boost. Again, I’d much rather receive checks, but when an editor takes extra time and effort to encourage me, I savor the moment.

4.     Motivation - Have you written that piece that you know is great, but just keep receiving rejection after rejection? Your rewrite it - rejection. You get your critique group to look at it - rejection. You re-slant it - rejection. For me, this is a challenge. If I know a piece is good, I challenge myself to find the right market for it. I keep plugging away until an editor realizes what a treasure the piece is and wants to share it with their readers.

The road to success is paved with setbacks. Yet, in the end, it is our persistence despite rejection that will make us the writers we were meant to be.

Angela Dion is the owner of Dion Communications, LLC www.dioncommunications.com.  To subscribe to her free e-magazine Write Words and get the free 9 page booklet, Write Killer Queries, go to  http://www.dioncommunications.com./newsletter/?p=subscribe.

This article may be reprinted freely as long as the entire article and bio are included.

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Tags: handling rejection, reasons to keep writing rejections, rejection in freelance writing

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 8:09 pm and is filed under 4 Reasons to keep rejections, Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.