I am taking a blog holiday, but what I’ve done, is go through the archives and pick a few somewhat random posts that I thought you might like to see again. (Oh, and unfortunately, the bit about our house being for sale…yeah, wrote this last year and it’s still unfortunately true! Anyone want to buy waterfront in Tennessee? Drop me a line!) Anyway, enjoy!

If you think rejection is hard, try regret – Carolyn Hax

I love this quote. Hax made it in regards to dating (or not taking a chance with someone) in her advice column a few years ago, but it works for everything, really. Still…I’m not so sure that rejection and writing go hand in hand.

Our house is for sale (not the one we live in, but the one we moved from). Everyone knows when you sell a house that multiple offers are optimum, but really, all you need is one person to fall in love with your house and buy it. And yet, if our realtor books an appointment with someone, shows the house, and they don’t think it will work for them because they have five kids and it turns out our house only has one bathroom, we don’t feel rejected, do we? The house is just not a good fit for that family. This got me thinking about the word rejection in regards to publishing.

Why exactly is rejection the word that writers (and editors, agents, etc.) have chosen to latch on to? When you’re in the query process, or the submission process, you often hear advice to ‘not take a rejection personally’ because your writing may not be bad at all, ‘just not a good fit’. But the verb ‘reject’ means: to dismiss as inadequate or faulty. How can you not take it personally and still call it a ‘rejection’? I would like to challenge everyone to reject the term rejection in regards to writing, and switch to something more positive. Or at least neutral.

I know that some of my friends and family are surprised that “rejections” don’t seem to bother me much. I’ve always thought it was because I started out life as an actress, and in that tough field, sometimes you’re rejected right to your face! At least with writing, you get a nice snail mail letter or an email. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Little Miss Sunshine (well, okay, I am, but that’s an entirely different post), but semantics are everything, especially to writers! Words matter. From now on I am not accepting any more rejections. It’s not like an editor says, “I reject you! Bwahahahaah!” anyway. No, they usually say….”Thank you for the opportunity to read this, but it doesn’t really fit in our house.” There you go! No rejection anywhere in that letter!

While I’d like to sell everything I write from now on, there may be an occasion where it doesn’t happen…you know, just one or two rare occasions (haha)… Here are the words I choose to use when that happens. I challenge you to do the same, lose rejection from your vocabulary, and add to my list.

• Took a pass
• Decided it wasn’t right for them
• Is giving someone else an opportunity
• Turned it down
• Bowed out of the running
• Didn’t want to buy it
• ????