Zero-Sum

Since my last post, I have received one agent rejection and one (or three?) competition rejection(s). Indomitable, I continue to write whatever words appear in my head and pay for disappointment; I'm not writing to make money, but it is sickening when other people profit from your disenchantment.

And that's what I want to write about today: how we respond to rejection. Sure, blogging about it, being transparent about the different forms of rejection, and wishing for more clarity around these decisions is the visible response. But mentally, how do you react to that kindly-worded "no", the blunt "your piece did not make it", or the desolate silence? How do you react when another writer's name is displayed on that website, blasted all over social media, and eventually winds up in your local bookstore?

If my words are tinged with resentment, you have detected my initial response to rejection: If I lost, who won?

Perhaps that makes me a sore loser, but surely it's a natural logical leap. I blame myself to the point of self-flagellation. My "no" is someone else's "yes". In many cases, I'll never know who supplanted my position on the agent's or judge's ranking, or why. I'll never understand what made my creative output so worthless, so unworthy, and someone else's a diamond against my rough. All this may be true, and yet, does that make me any less of a writer?

Of course not. So the second logical leap I'll make is something like, "maybe the judges/agent just don't appreciate the sort of thing I write. Maybe they just don't get it." This is also something a sore loser will do: blame it on the powers that be, rather than reflect on themselves. Blame the tool, not the hand that holds it. I certainly found myself doing that when I recently watched the livestream for a competition I entered, only to learn that I hadn't even made the longlist. Yet that wasn't the only lesson I learned. I heard each of the judges and agents on the panel outline exactly what they wanted, what they liked, and offer full manuscript requests to the authors that really astounded them. I understood that what I've written is not for them. They wanted cozy crime, easy beachside reading, the book that makes you think but only just enough to poke the overton window without shattering it.

Now, if I want my writing to kick right through the overton window, drench the streets in glass, and rebuild our understand of "good" and "acceptable" and "real" from the ground up, did I ever have a chance with these particular judges?

My ambition is meaningless to you, but you can understand why my reactions are so extreme. I bury them underneath a smile and carry on, but they're still there. And they can sometimes cause me to relinquish my ambition, my motivation, and stop writing for a month or so. Obviously, that disillusionment never endures, because I literally can't stop writing, but I am left with a twinge of doubt every time.

As with any life lesson, there is a balance to be struck. Every player in this game is a human. This industry is painfully subjective and, as a fellow writer pointed out to me the other day, we're all a bit egotistic and a bit nuts. Our heartfelt contribution to the literary canon may read as unbearably trite to one and superlative to another.

And, most importantly, writing is not a zero-sum game. The "winner" is not always a winner. They are a writer just like you, who faced a million "no"s and non-responses, and will face a million more before their light dims. Although we compete against each other for grants and fellowships and prestige, we are not being sorted into permanent states of winning and losing. We are all finding our spot on the bookshelf. Some of us are trying to crack the overton window and call out to whoever will listen; some of us are happy to draw smiles in the steam against the glass.

Now, when I receive a rejection, I shove past those destructive thoughts and read the winning entries without a snarl. I note what they did well, and sometimes find a new favorite piece from an author I'd never heard of. If I don't like their work, or think that my submission was better, I have to remind myself that the judge didn't think so for their own array of personal reasons I may never understand. Ultimately, I refuse to be a bitter little island when there's such a plethora of writers to meet. So long as there is an industry that supports us and our respective goals, we will all win out in the end.

And if there isn't, let's make our own.