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Rejection: Encouragement in Disguise

Words that cut you to the bone and force to you to look at your work or research whom you send it out to or even reword your submission letter. Words that strengthen your resolve to get published. Think of it as a rite of initiation, even the best of the best have to pass, to call themselves published writers.

Dear Shweta Ganesh Kumar:

Thank you for sending “XXX.” Your work received careful consideration here.

We’ve decided this manuscript isn’t right for us, but we wish you luck placing it elsewhere.

Kind regards,

The Editors

Yes, yes, I can see all of you aspiring writers out there nodding your heads at the painful twinge of familiarity that letter caused. But, guess what?

You are not alone.

Those are pretty much the words I read everyday when I checked my email circa 2010 when I started to send out my first submissions. Every day, I would screw up my courage, cross my fingers and toes and pray to everything I believe in for a break, one break, please let today be the day, and click open my inbox.

And there they would be, the mails from people who just did not have space for my writing, even though I would find out, from careful perusal of their sites, that they had ample space for the floozies and ghost writers of the world. I would judge away as hot tears added a touch of salt to my bucket of chocolate ice cream. Some spirited wailing later, I would sit down again. It would be time to send out my manuscript to someone else.

By the summer of 2011 when my first book was released, I had 22 rejection letters carefully filed away in a folder called ‘Motivation’.

For, despite the stinging pain they caused that is what they really are. Words that cut you to the bone and force to you to look at your work or research whom you send it out to or even reword your submission letter. Words that strengthen your resolve to get published. Think of it as a rite of initiation, even the best of the best have to pass, to call themselves published writers.

Don’t believe me? Well, then what about Stephen King? He says:

“By the time I was fourteen the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.”

Of course, some of us can have actual laundry baskets filled with these blessings in disguise, but that’s a different story.

So, do you have a rejection story that changed you for the better?

By Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Shweta Ganesh Kumar is the bestselling author of two novels on the Indian Broadcast news industry, titled ‘Coming Up On The Show’ and ‘Between The Headlines’. She has worked as a news trainee, desk editor, TV news correspondent with CNN-IBN and a communications officer at Greenpeace India.

One reply on “Rejection: Encouragement in Disguise”

Hi Shweta,

Thank you very much for the crisp and motivating post! Yes, we all who have the passion of writing and the dreams of our work being read by the millions out there, cannot agree more with you! You have echoed our feelings and have added a burst to our motivation levels.

Having been an active blogger (mainly on thoughts, impressions and life-stories) for three years, some months back I decided to publish my first novel. The inspiration was to tell the world, a true story of a very close friend and some life’s experiences around him, that had left an indelible mark on my heart and mind.

Rejection letters (rather emails) counted, I chose the path of self-publishing and the book saw the light of the day on the online portals, but the ultimate satisfaction that an author craves for, for his work, remained elusive.

Nonetheless, I have now put my fingers back to the keyboard and my thoughts to a word doc, and in the process creating my second book! But at the back of my mind, still lurks the thought that I need to reach me friend’s story to more people out there..so, need to relaunch the first book! As usual…waiting for that first stroke of luck and the ice to break !

Your post brought back thoughts and memories of my passionate work of the last two years and the way you have echoed my thoughts, I felt I should reply and thank you!

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