Rejection, part 9

Rhianna and final thoughts on the art of being rejected

Part 9: Rihanna

Rihanna’s fashion through the ages. Photo credits: Kevin Winter/Neilson Barnard/Stephane Cardinale/Corbis/Getty Images

Or “rejection nirvana.”

We can all agree that Rihanna would say some wise shit about rejection.

Other people reject us, and we let it rule our lives. Would Rihanna let rejection or her rejectors rule her life?

• No.

If all else fails, then think and act and sing/dance/dress like Rihanna.

A student asked me recently re: rejection, “How do you know when to give up?”

I told him to write a rejection plan. E.g. submit, revise, and resubmit one piece to 10 venues for 3 months — and then give up (for now) and work on something else. I suggested devising a points system to keep up morale:

• 10 points for putting yourself “out there.”

• 30 points for having a goal and going for it vs. talking/complaining about going for it.

• 100 points per rejection.

But the real answer to “How do you know when to give up?” is “you don’t.”

I’ve asked the same question, thinking there was an answer and that someone could answer it for me.

Much of my writing life I’ve waited on editors or agents to accept or reject my writing in order to keep or quit writing. I’ve waited for others to believe in me so I could believe in myself. I’ve waited, I’ve waited, I’ve waited.

In waiting I’ve given other people ~my power.~

Rejection is a power other people hold.

Ditto acceptance and approval. “Acceptance” (i.e. that your writing “matters” and is called “art”) and “approval” (i.e. that readers like/love/respect your writing) are powers other people have. If your writing depends on acceptance or approval or rejection, then you depend on your audience, especially on your critics (because they are louder and more prolific). If your writing depends on publication, then such limited thinking will limit what you’ll write and how/if you’ll make your writing public.

But rejection doesn’t have to mean anything. We decide what it means — that’s our power, and it’s a better power because it’s the power of meaning. What if rejection just isn’t that deep?

If you’re going to give up, then give up giving other people the power to decide:

• if you’re a writer

• if you should keep writing

• how you spend your time

• what you do with your passion

• what to do with your hair

• how to live your life

• what to wear in the morning, what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about, what to believe in, who to vote for, who to love and how to tell them, etc.

“It’ll pass.”

Give up the question of giving up. Instead, do the hardest thing, which is *sit in uncertainty.*

That famous poet man John Keats (rumored to have died believing he was a failure) said the difference between a good artist and a great one was the quality “of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” Sitting in uncertainty is the true talent, even more than getting good at rejection.

To write while uncertain; to submit without reaching after reason; to not know if anyone will care if you do or don’t — that’s Rihanna/“rejection nirvana.”

Some final thoughts:

• Don’t wait on anyone else to tell you to give up or keep going; just keep going.

• Once rejected, return to what is stable: your PASSION. Passion is the answer to every question. Passion is the only reason. And passion is active. You know what they say, “More passion, more passion, more passion, more energy, more energy, more footwork, more footwork, more footwork, more passion, more NRG, more NRG.”

  • Inspiring quotation from Art & Fear: “In the outside world there may be no reaction to what we do; in our artwork there is nothing but reaction.”

• Do what you want to do because you want to do it; wanting to is enough.

• The difference between writers and ex-writers is who says or screams, “I CAN’T GO ON. I’LL GO ON.”

• If you’re not getting rejected all the time, then what are you doing? Nothing?

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Next on Tragedy Plus Time, a series of how-tos:

• How to find your voice

• How to get unstuck

• How to sit in a chair (productivity hacks)

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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.

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