Rejection, part 4

"Reframe"

TikTok knows I’ve been talking about rejection. It gave me a video that said, “Every rejection is a redirection.”

So far we’ve redefined rejection, reminded ourselves what the job really is, and replaced the word “rejection” with better-feeling phrases.

Now, we’ll reframe rejection so it loses its power over us and we can keep our shit together.

4. Reframe.

Editor real-talk: You don’t see the number of rejected submissions or bad submissions or submissions that should be emails to a therapist. You see only what’s accepted/published, and you compare yourself to that.

Don’t.

If you must compare (and remember that nobody transcends through comparison), then compare down, not up.

• Compare yourself to everyone who hasn’t written a word but wishes they could (if only they had the time, space, tools, education, access, audience, confidence, desperation, discipline, invitation).

• Compare yourself to my submission pile, where men submit nonfiction to a humor column called Funny Women.

• Compare yourself to my hundreds of students who write publishable pieces but don’t submit them because they pre-reject themselves.

We may never know why some writers submit bad writing and other writers don’t submit good writing. Perhaps bad writers suspect they’re good, and good writers suspect they’re bad. But all writers are bad writers and good writers. The published writers submit.

Know this: most “frequent contributors” have ~17 pieces rejected between acceptances. An editor at Reductress told me, “Even our best writers have, like, a 30% hit rate, at most.” Even the best writers are rejected 70% of the time.

Even the best writers are rejected 70% of the time. Even the best writers are rejected 70% of the time. Even the best writers are rejected 70% of the time. Even the best writers are rejected 70% of the time. Even the best writers are rejected 70% of the time.

What does it mean if your writing has been rejected?

• That your writing is bad?

• That you’re a bad writer?

• That you should quit writing?

  • Apply to law school?

  • Marry the wrong person already?

  • Admit that things have not — ever — been okay?

• That it’s time to panic, to say hello to your old friend darkness, to fantasize about your funeral and what everyone will say about you and your writing?

• That you’ve wasted your time, your weekends, your life?

NONE OF THE ABOVE, BITCH.

If your writing has been rejected, often it means nothing.

Well, actually, it means you’ve been writing.

And it means you’ve been composting. Natalie Goldberg wrote about composting in her required writing guide Writing Down the Bones. To her, composting is a poetic term for perspective-getting in the space between experience and writing:

“Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out egg shells . . . of our minds come, nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts. . .

Are you getting rejected? No, you are in “the process of practice.”

I think of rejected writing as composting. Composting — the writing that no one sees or accepts or likes — makes you better at writing. So, nothing is wasted. Not time, not dignity. The rejected pieces, the deleted pages, the embarrassing drafts that make you question your literacy: it’s writing you must do.

You learn how to write by writing. You learn how to get published by getting rejected. You learn how to write better by profoundly sucking. You learn how to do surgery by watching 19 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. You learn about my mental illnesses by reading my book about them.

For those who know, who is the sun: Derek or Meredith?

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Talk more about Grey’s Anatomy in my upcoming seminars:

How to Write a Tragicomic Memoir

• October 8th (Sunday)

• 2-5pm EST

• Online, via Writing Workshops

Learn to make readers laugh while RIPPING OUT THEIR HEARTS in a full-length sad, funny book about yourself and your exes. I’ll go through all my rejections and what they taught me about how to write a book.

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The Art of Rejection

• October 17th (Tuesday)

• 7-9pm EST

• Online, via Quebec Writers’ Federation

Like this newsletter but with handouts, my face, brainstorming exercises, 10x more information, and an AMA where you can ask me anything about my personal life.

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ICYMI: I’m Elissa Bassist, and I teach short conceptual humor/satire writing, funny personal essays, tragicomic memoir, emotional emails, and that’s it. I edit the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus, and I wrote the award-deserving book Hysterical. I am probably my therapist’s favorite.

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