Tag: rejection

August 6, 2026

Not Now, Maybe Later

Why I’m collecting rejections in a spreadsheet

I have a lot of good things going on.

I’m writing this from the Royal Court Theatre in London where, as a Writers’ Card member, I have free use of their writing space. While I don’t have a garden/yard of my own, my downstairs neighbours said yes to my request to keep potted plants in the gravel-filled space out front, and I recently had a salad of fresh lettuce I grew.

This weekend, I watched Brighton’s Pride parade, brought my books to a DJed Pride event to sell, and went to a cat cafe, where a furry little rascal named Fifi tried to steal my creamy drink.

Writing wise, I’ve been busy. I took part in two podcasts with The Good Book Life: Protecting Pride, which discussed the growing trend of removing Pride and LGBTQI+ displays from UK libraries and the importance of representation in the face of censorship, and Reading by the Swamp: Alternative Summer Reads, where we recommended unconventional favourites for the season.

I have a new story published in Mythaxis. “Rooted” features workplace burnout, a garden/forest Workaway, and an uncanny hostess. Talk about “getting back to your roots!” You can read it here, or listen to an audio version.

Illustration for my story “Rooted” in Mythaxis

I took part in Aggh! Zine’s zine-making workshop, where I made a playlist zine for my YA novel Chasing Harmony (themes: gifted kid burnout, bi angst, Canada in the 90s/00s, and lots and lots of music). You can see the zine below (so much fun to make!), and listen to the Spotify playlist for my book here.

But…

So often, there’s a “but.”

When Plans Change

Publishing is a changeable business, and it just so happens that my entire publication schedule has changed at once.

I had a book planned for release this year. My literary romance novella, the project that got me through lockdown, is now going to be out next year – fall 2027 – instead.

The anthology I’m editing has moved from a March 2027 release to a June 2027 release.

My other planned 2027 book will, most likely (hopefully), be a 2028 book.

I’m looking forward to launching these books on their revised timelines. And it feels like a big adjustment at a time when multiple changes have converged.

Other things that I was hoping for, planning for, this year didn’t end up happening at all. A theatre show didn’t happen. A festival didn’t happen. Some big personal plans, the type of thing I don’t write about in newsletters, also didn’t happen.

I’ve been sitting with my disappointment when plans fall through, and asking myself, “What can I do instead? What’s within my control?”

Often, we do our best, but outcomes are partly or wholly beyond our control.

We can’t necessarily turn a “no” into a “yes,” or a “later” into a “now.”

We can, however, to paraphrase a saying, look for a window when a door closes.

Collecting Rejections

Writers get a lot of rejections.

I first read about the idea of collecting these rejections in a Literary Hub article when it came out in 2016. Writer Kim Liao proposed the idea of collecting 100 rejections a year. If you aim to get rejected by that many magazines, fellowships, residencies, or whatever else, you’ll likely get a few acceptances along the way.

I didn’t end up actively counting rejections at the time, though I did start tracking my story submissions.

More recently, actor and content creator Gabriella Carr has gone viral for pursuing 1000 rejections. And Jia Jiang has written a book about rejection therapy (as he calls it), after challenging himself to face rejection for 100 days in a row by asking for unusual things. Beyond the literary world, rejection can be pursued as a confidence-building exercise or a way to increase personal resilience.

Since I started hearing more “nos” this year, I’ve created a spreadsheet. I list the things I’ve applied or asked for, when, and the result. Most of them are “nos.” But a few are “yeses.”

We can’t always control the answers we get, or the plans that change. But we can ask.

What have you asked for lately? What would you like to?

August 4, 2021

A Story from 10 Years Ago

The first literary magazine I ever read submissions for was The Fiddlehead. Based out of the University of New Brunswick, it’s the oldest Canadian literary magazine in circulation. It’s a well respected mixture of poetry, fiction and reviews. I enjoyed reading through the slush pile, looking for gems and passing them on to a more senior editor when I found them. The magazine had a practice of sending feedback to everyone who submits, so when I decided that a submission wasn’t going to move forward, I wrote a little note to the author on a slip of paper. (Those were the days when we sent our writing to magazines via snail mail.)

I’ve had a couple of poems published in The Fiddlehead. I’ve also had some rejection letters from them for both poetry and fiction. This summer, I got another acceptance for a story I’ve been trying to place for 10 years.

In my creative writing Master’s program, I wrote a weird story about a middle-aged banker who goes on a cybersex chatroom. It’s set very obviously in the early 2010s, with allusions to politics of the time. There’s sexy talk about math. There are secret identities. I thought at first that “A Limit to Growth” might grow into a novel, but it reached a natural stopping point at short story length, with an ambiguous ending.

I knew that I’d written a good story. But for the next decade, I failed to place it. It wasn’t even one of those stories that got encouraging feedback: “This was good work but not for us” or “We encourage you to submit something else.” It got crickets.

The novel I wrote for my thesis, around the same time, had a similar result. More people liked it, but no one was looking for a bisexual coming-of-age story about a musical prodigy, with alternating timelines and a slower pace. “We only have a limited number of spots in our publishing program…”

Submitting your writing means getting rejected. Jane Yolen, legendary author from my childhood, tweets about her rejections all the time. You just have to keep baiting your hook until somebody bites.

I didn’t give up on “A Limit to Growth,” and I’m excited to see it find a home in The Fiddlehead’s 2021 summer fiction issue. I left my novel in a metaphorical drawer for a while, then resubmitted it to some new publishers this year and am delighted that it, too, has found a home. Chasing Harmony will be published by Read Furiously in 2022.

So, those are my stories from 10 years ago. It took time, persistence, and changes in the marketplace for them to reach an audience, but I knew that there was something good in both of them. I believed in them, so I kept trying. Next time I write something I like, I’ll remember how long it took to place these pieces and keep at it. If you’ve written something you believe in, I encourage you to do the same. Better late than never!

February 1, 2018

Writing and Publication: A Nonlinear Path

In 2016, I’d given up on getting a publishing deal.

I’d been writing for most of my life. As a teenager, I’d self-published two poetry books (in the day before digital publishing, when self-publishing meant going to Kwik Kopy to get paper books printed) as fundraisers for charity. I went on to study Creative Writing in graduate school and complete a novel as my thesis. I had poetry, short story, and children’s book manuscripts ready to send out, a track record of literary publication, and old projects sitting in my Dropbox. I was bound and determined to have a career.

So the submissions and query letters went out, and the rejections came rolling in. The next five years brought two close calls: after many no’s, one publisher accepted my children’s book, only to have the line of books they’d accepted it for fold. A new small press was interested in my short stories, but the press ended up not getting off the ground. I tried to freelance and occasionally shopped around old pieces, but my heart was no longer in it. I dreamed often about having a great idea for a novel, but my real-life attempts never made it past chapter 1. The energy had drained from my writing attempts, and I worked in abortive fits and starts. Was my lifelong dream of writing books a false hope? Despite my love of stories and the positive feedback I’d received in my early life about my way with words, I wondered, not for the first time, if I’d been cut out for this at all.

Meanwhile, I focused on studying and then teaching the Enneagram personality system. My co-teacher Kacie and I decided to create a little ebook about personality types at work as a freebie connected to our mailing list. I brought out my editing and design skills to shape bits of our previous writing into a coherent whole, and added Decoding Personality in the Workplace to my email signature. I also continued to edit books on a freelance basis, and one day, one of these publishers asked: “We’re looking for an Enneagram book, and I see you’ve written one. Would you be interested in doing one for us?” And in 2017, Kacie and I got to hold The Modern Enneagram, the published book I’d given up on, in our hands.

There’s more than one path to being published, and the journey can be long and hard. Here are some strategies to weather its ups and downs.

1. Be persistent.

Rejection is a fact of publishing. A quick Google search will yield lists of rejection letters, hilarious in hindsight, for best-selling novels, and Stephen King collected enough of the suckers to hang them on his wall. From my experience on the other side of the acquisitions desk, I can attest that a lot of good writing, for reasons related to fit, space, and chance, just doesn’t make the cut. Those same pieces might find a perfect home elsewhere. Keep submitting, and if the editor takes the time to give constructive feedback, read it carefully. Sometimes they just don’t get your story, but at other times they’ve identified flaws that will improve your writing if corrected.

Also, while many publishers and publications simply don’t respond to submissions they choose not to publish, if the venue doesn’t specify this, don’t be afraid to follow up if you haven’t heard back. Last summer, I sent a fantasy story to an online magazine and heard nothing in response. I assumed they just didn’t like my story, then discovered that another submitter had received a prompt reply. My follow-up email led to the publication of “Count Three Stones,” and a piece I’d loved writing finally found a home.

2. Be open to different doorways in.

If one approach isn’t working, consider another. I just heard a great story from a Scottish literary agent about a writer of paranormal police procedurals. Despite the quality of his work, he was repeatedly turned down by traditional publishers because there was “no market” for his books. This agent encouraged him to self-publish, and the popularity of his unconventional mysteries proved the publishers wrong.

If you’re committed to getting your work out there, be open to trying different avenues for publication (including self-publishing), different genres, and new approaches. Experiment and see where it lands you.

3. Take breaks when needed.

If you feel exhausted and disheartened from the submission-rejection cycle, sometimes the best thing to do is to take a break from the whole game. Step away from your favorite manuscript. Let go of the projects you’re invested in if they’ve been driving you crazy. Later, you can return to them with fresh eyes, able to revise when needed, take a new submission approach, or start something new and exciting. Remember that “not now” doesn’t mean “not ever.” Publication is a non-linear process, so be open for its cycles of ebb and flow, and expect the unexpected!