| I have been training to be a writer most of
my life. A rejected writer, that is. While I was
growing up, like most children, I tried on many
different hats trying to discover what fit and
who I would become. As I grew older, many of my
original hopes and dreams were rejected and discarded.
For example, when I was two years old I wanted
to be a pony. I did not want to have a pony. I
wanted to be one. I was convinced that if I ate
all my veggies and didn’t pick my nose during
church, my wish would come true. It didn’t.
Then when I was three I decided I would be a
princess when I grew up. I found out that royalty
was something you had to be born into and that
there was more to it then just remembering to
wear your knickers whenever you wore a really
short party dress. Being a princess was rejected
and I stopped practicing my royal wave.
At six I really wanted to be a fireman. My older
sister told me there was no way I could be a fireman
because everyone knew that firemen were boys.
She also said that using dad’s razor would
only scar me for life and not turn me into a boy.
So I put away the razor and went on to elementary
school where I learned that when you stick your
tongue out at the class bully, he’ll probably
slug you.
When I was 12 years old I read my first romance
novel and I was blown away. Wow! I thought, I
can do this. I sat down and wrote the most poignant,
gloomy pages ever written, filled with pre-teen
angst. As I wrote, I had tears streaming down
my face because I was just so moved by my dramatic
scene. I was so excited when a relative read my
work. I thought, Ah Hah! I’ve found my calling!
I’ll be a writer. Then my relative laughed
and said that I’d never be a writer because
I had no gift for words.
Of course, for the next 20 years I did nothing
but prove her right. It’s amazing how we
can take to heart the insults and criticisms of
others and cherish them inside ourselves, allowing
those words to define who we are and what we will
become.
When I graduated from high school I had absolutely
no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.
My mother said I should go to secretarial school
because there was always a need for good secretaries.
So I went off and studied Pitman shorthand. Now,
twenty-four years later, I have yet to find a
use for this skill.
I believe that each and every one of us receives
gifts that help us along our journey in life.
The problem is that often these gifts are disguised
as problems, or obstacles. Having a pile of kids,
for example, although truly a gift, can also be
an obstacle when trying to write.
When I was thirty-four years old I woke up one
rainy, miserable morning with three whining children
velcroed to my ankles. I screamed, “If I
don’t do something using my mind, I’m
going to lose it!”
My husband, in his wisest and most patient voice,
told me that I should write a book. He said, “You’re
a great mother. You should write a children’s
book, or a motivational book for parents.”
Taking part of his advice, I sat down and wrote
a murder scene where a wise and patient husband
had an incredibly gory death.
However, my husband’s suggestion that I
write was a gift because afterward I was hooked
on writing. I had characters constantly talking
inside my head. There were heroes, heroines, murderers
and tramps all vying for my attention and demanding
their stories be told. How could I resist?
Soon I discovered the ugly side to writing. Submissions,
or should I say, rejections. I have a thick file
of rejections and the majority of these are form
rejections that were based on nothing but a query
letter, or a few chapters. Other writers told
me rejections were a right of passage for authors
and that they would make me a better writer, so
I decided to treat them as a gift. This wasn’t
easy because those darn things hurt.
There’s one rejection in particular that
still stings. An agent requested a full manuscript
from me and I was ecstatic because it was the
first time I’d ever had a request for a
full. A couple of months later I received her
rejection and in the final paragraph she blew
my world apart. She wrote, I find your characters
cliché, your dialogue forced and the premise
unbelievable.
Now I don’t consider myself a violent woman,
but after I read that I was a tad miffed. Oh I
was tempted to write her a letter. I even considered
inviting her to lunch at high noon.
It’s true that, in the beginning, I didn’t
exactly consider that particular rejection letter
a gift. Luckily, had stupidity on my side. I re-read
the agent’s letter and I thought, cliched
characters, forced dialogue, unbelievable premise?
I can fix that!
Around the same time I received another gift.
The writing group I belonged to invited Bill Johnson
to give a workshop. He’s the author of A
Story Is A Promise and someone I’ve always
admired. I approached him after his seminar and
convinced him to critique my manuscript. I sent
it off to him and a few weeks later he sent me
an email reply. He listed a few points I needed
to work on to strengthen my characters but in
his conclusion he wrote, “I enjoyed reading
your novel very much. You know how to write potent
dramatic truths, and how to create a story that
is a journey of feeling.”
Oh I liked him. I wanted to marry him and have
his babies!
Then confusion set in. Who do I believe, the
person who insulted my work, or the one who praised
it? This was the same manuscript.
After careful consideration, I decided to assume
that my work was average. I could handle being
mediocre because I knew that I could improve my
skills by honing my craft. I harassed critique
partners, took more writing classes, bought more
how-to books on writing, and attended more conferences.
Yes, I memorized entire lectures on point of view
and premise. There were times when I spent so
much time reading up on how to write love scenes,
that my husband told me that if I didn’t
start taking those studies to a more practical
level, he was going to sell my computer.
No matter how much time I spent hiding behind
courses, seminars and books, in the end, I still
had to confront that damn blank computer screen.
I tried and tried to force my writing to fit the
mold that I thought was necessary for publication.
I wrote romantic suspense but my heroes and heroines
always came off sounding staged and stupid. I
didn’t know how to make my characters take
their tragedies seriously. Of course, more and
more rejections poured in. Some, a very few, had
hints as to what the problems were; the plots
weren’t unique, the hero too weak, the heroine
too flawed. I kept on writing, but I didn’t
feel like I was getting any closer. No matter
what the rejection letters said, the words that
I read were: We hate you. Just stop sending us
stuff, you moron.
Ouch! I wanted the editors to know that I was
a real person, made of flesh, blood and cellulite!
Of course it’s not their job to form an
attachment to the author. Editors need to fall
in love with the writing. I needed my words to
evoke in them, the same level of emotion that
their rejection letters evoked in me. I knew what
all writers know, that if I couldn’t tug
on the heartstrings, or tickle the funny bone
of an editor, she would never believe I could
work that magic on a reader.
Determined to create more in-depth characters
that an editor would love, I read up on what some
multi-published authors do. I discovered that
many writers suggested that we reach inside our
own lives and grasp onto the situations that are
both comical and tragic and bring that level of
feeling into our writing. Apparently, most people
have experienced moments of extreme fear or sorrow
and had those same moments twist into something
laughable, yet often we don’t reach that
deeply for our characters. I wanted that level
of emotion in my writing, so I looked for examples
in my own life.
On July 1, 1993 after 17 hours of hard labour,
I gave birth to my first child. In the moments
following that baby’s birth, I felt the
entire rainbow of emotions. First, was overwhelming
relief that that thing was finally out of my body.
Then they said it’s a girl and I was elated!
Seconds later, I watched as my tiny bundle was
rushed to a side table. Her blue, lifeless form
was placed under warming lights and I watched
in horror as my doctor worked up a sweat trying
to pump air into her reluctant lungs. My heart
was gripped in a fear like I’d never known
before. There was a deadly silence in the delivery
room and I held my own breath until the doctor
was finally able to get oxygen into my little
girl’s lungs, and I felt pure ecstasy when
she breathed on her own. The relieved doctor walked
my pink bundle toward my outstretched arms and,
in gratitude, my precious little girl peed all
over that good doctor. In less than a minute I’d
gone from acute terror, to a fit of giggles.
Is it possible to get those extreme emotions
onto the written page? Of course it is. We’ve
all read books that have made us laugh and cry.
When you feel like rejection letters are aiming
personal arrows at your heart, and you think that
you’ll never get beyond a form letter from
an editor, that is exactly when you must press
your body into the chair at your computer and
pour emotion onto the screen.
Personally, I’ve written some of my best
stuff when filled with the anguish from a recent
rejection. The trick is to pick yourself up by
your bra straps and force yourself to write. Write
something. Write anything. If it’s too painful
for you to turn to your manuscript, then write
a scene of sorrow or mirth from your own life.
In detail you could describe your most embarrassing
moment. Could your heroine experience a similar
moment? Have you lost someone close to you? Could
your hero lose someone in a similar way? Who would
you kill, if you thought you could get away with
it? Write that murder scene and, of course, shred
those pages afterward.
If you can bring yourself to write about the
comical and heartrending moments in your own life,
you can often trick your rejection-scarred muse
into dipping back into your manuscript. When we
look for drama inside ourselves, it inspires us
to create a deeper level of feeling in our work.
After all, what good is the pain involved in
receiving rejections, if you can’t use those
feelings to your advantage? Rejections are insulting,
demeaning and even embarrassing. It is totally
unfair that a few lines from an editor or agent
can whisk your hard work into the trash heap.
Let it out! After you open a rejection you should,
cry, pout, scream, and shout. Some people choose
to get drunk. If I did that after every rejection,
I would now be a long-standing member of AA instead
of RWA. Do what works for you, but do it fast.
Give yourself a week at the most to mourn a rejection
letter.
Why only a week? Why not allow yourself to avoid
writing altogether for weeks or months on end,
until you feel better? Because you’ll never
feel better. Even once you sell, chances are good
you will need to deal with the rejection of your
second, fourth or twelfth book. Yes, I’ve
already researched that fact personally on your
behalf.
You need to establish a pick-yourself-up and
dust-yourself-off attitude now. It just doesn’t
get any easier. Every week that you spend not
writing, encourages you to form a habit of not
writing. Every day you spend not writing, thousands
of other authors are. Use your anguish and disappointment
to propel emotion onto the written page as soon
as possible.
As my own collection of rejections piled up,
it was getting harder and harder to see them as
a gift. Still, I forced myself to write through
the hurt. It was not easy. The faster I wrote,
the faster I was rejected and, let me tell you,
I was motivated. My husband wanted me to return
to work with him in his real estate office, once
our youngest child started kindergarten. I was
desperate. I either needed to sell, or face the
prospect that I would lose precious writing time
sitting behind a desk plotting my husband’s
untimely demise.
Although I’d been writing with children
at my feet for years, I fantasized about the freedom
of writing while they were in school. I needed
to at least make some progress in the direction
of getting published. It was laughable that now,
with four beautiful children gnawing at my ankles
and nipping at my nerves, I was still trying to
write serious, dramatic novels. Anxiously, I waited
to hear back on three different manuscripts, one
each that I’d submitted to Silhouette Intimate
Moments, Harlequin Intrigue and the Bombshell
line. There was nothing serious left inside me.
Then, as so often happens when we reach a point
of desperation, I received another gift. This
one was Nancy Warren’s workshop at the Surrey
Writer’s Conference entitled, Why Is
She Laughing? There I learned a phrase that
would change my life forever—Chick Lit.
After the conference I returned home waiting
to be rejected by those three lines but, as a
lark, I began writing a novel that had a lighter
tone and, to my surprise, it actually came easy.
The words just seemed to fall onto the page. Someone
suggested that I submit it to Red Dress Ink, even
though I’d only written the first couple
chapters. I did and, of course, I got a request
for a full manuscript two weeks later. I panicked.
Especially when the three rejections I’d
been expecting arrived in the mail shortly afterward.
Fueled and riding high on the emotions of those
rejections, I pumped out the balance of my novel
in under a month. When the manuscript was completed,
I was convinced that I’d embarrassed myself
with the drivel I’d spewed onto the page.
It couldn’t possibly be any good, after
all, I’d written off the cuff, without second
guessing myself, and without agonizing over every
single word, like usual.
Then, on the morning of August 8, I got the call
from Red Dress Ink saying that they wanted to
buy my crap.
Nobody was more shocked than me.
After I hung up the phone from talking to Kathryn
Lye, I couldn’t help but laugh. I laughed
until I cried and those tears of joy sure tasted
sweet. Then, as I recounted every rejection and
setback along the way, I cried entirely different
tears. I knew that at any given moment I could
have given in and allowed those rejections to
define who I am and what I would become.
Still, I will never be a firefighter or a princess,
but I don’t mind so much anymore. I can
always write a scene where a firefighter and a
princess are doing the dance of love and, who
knows, someone might even buy it.
Wendy Roberts is a member of GVC.
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