The Gift of Rejection

On the nerve it takes to keep writing

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Recently, my daughter asked me if I had received the literary magazine I’d been waiting for, the one that features my latest essay.

“It should be here by Friday,” I told her, then I added, “I can’t believe I’m still writing.”

I recited some of the worst things people, especially men, have said about my writing.

Her eyes widened. And again I said to her, “I can’t believe I’m still doing this.”

I told her how proud I was of this particular piece about my mother and how excited I’d been to share it with my now ex-partner. I thought he would be proud, too, and that he would appreciate how I wrote about him in a positive light.

He read it and said nothing. I finally asked him what he thought and he all but rolled his eyes.

“How long are you going to process this stuff, huh? When are you going to write about something different? How much validation do you need?”

I was nothing short of devastated. I told him I had actually never written about it in this form, where I also recognize all the beautiful things about my mother. He said I should write more about the good stuff.

Without telling him, I submitted my essay to a magazine I thought would be a good fit. I got the quickest rejection ever. The editor, a man, told me he just couldn’t get past the essay’s second-person point of view.

For a moment, I thought my partner was right. Because it wasn’t so much the editor’s rejection that hurt, I have enough rejections to wall paper my entire apartment and then some. It was that feeling that this essay somehow didn’t deserve a home, that I was delusional for thinking this piece was something to be proud of.

I thought that…for a moment. I looked for more calls for submissions and submitted to a few more places. When I saw the editor’s email in my inbox, I took a deep breath, prepared to read that yet another editor couldn’t make the leap of accepting a piece written from that point of view.

Instead, I opened the email and found that the editor, a woman, had written, “We would like to accept your essay for publication.”

I was gleeful. I shared the good news with my then partner and he appeared almost disappointed. I think he was hoping to prove himself right.

There’s a reason why I’ve made it a point to mention whether the editor was a man or a woman. Much of the harshest criticism, the kind that could have destroyed my confidence and motivation to write, has come from men. But that doesn’t mean all of my experiences were negative.

In fact, it was my first college English teacher, Wes, who took me aside after the final day of class and encouraged me to pursue writing. I was shocked.

I was twenty-five at the time with a two-year old and five-year old. The rest of the class was mostly made up of teens, sixteen to eighteen, who were in the Running Start program. I wasn’t well-read. I grew up in a cult, married young, and I had become a mother by the time I was nineteen. Reading wasn’t at the top of my list of priorities. I felt terribly behind and deeply embarrassed.

Week after week, Wes would come in and slap down a book by some writer I’d never heard of. This straight, white, cisgender man, who resembled Thor, happened to be the first person to introduce me to Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Banana Yoshimoto, and Yasunari Kawabata.

Wes didn’t hold back and he could be unflinching at times. But it came from a place of wanting me to succeed. I could feel that.

Later, I transferred to a four-year college and took my first class focused on poetry only. It was in this class where I experienced the words I continued to hear for years from men:

“This would be interesting if it wasn’t about you.”

“Write more about your redheaded girlfriend. She sounds more interesting.”

“I wish your story focused more on your kids and less about you.”

Or, in all capitals, “I DON’T GET IT.”

The next year, I took a class from a well-known author, Bill Ransom. Like my first teacher, he was honest, but not harsh. He was encouraging, not dismissive. He gave me a list of publishers he thought would be a good fit for my writing. I submitted and got rejected from all of them. But, it didn’t stop me.

After graduating from Evergreen State College, I got the nerve to enter an MFA program. Most of our mentors were semi-famous, successful writers, and authors. We attended workshops, lectures, and readings. The workshops were merciless.

When I first arrived on campus for the ten-day residency, the first thing I noticed was the lack of ethnic and racial diversity. I believe I was one of only three students who brought that kind of diversity to the program.

The second thing that grabbed my attention was a woman asking, “Who wrote Coco?”

I raised my hand, unsure what type of response awaited me. Originally, Coco was a short story about a little girl with a sentient third arm. It eventually became a novella featured in my first book. I was pleasantly surprised when she told me how much she loved it and that it was the most original story she read from students in the program.

Then came the day when “Coco” would be workshopped. If you’ve been in a writer’s workshop you’re probably familiar with the traditional format. The group reads your work and then each participant goes around sharing their thoughts and critiques. Meanwhile, the writer must remain completely silent. The critique doesn’t happen in collaboration or dialogue with you; it happens at you, or to you.

In her book, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, Felicia Rose Chavez explains this model in the following manner:

The traditional model silences the author during the workshop while participants compete over what’s “right” and “wrong” with the text. (Chavez 11)

So, I sat there while two men tore apart my story and insisted it was about penis envy. They laughed about it, like I wasn’t even there. Meanwhile, I swallowed down the lump in my throat, not able to defend my writing, or challenge their ridiculous interpretation. One of these men would go on to write a series of vampire books, striking a multi-million dollar contract, while the other, my first year mentor, became frustrated because I wanted to focus on Latinx writers and encouraged me to read more, “North American authors.” He would eventually write me a scathing email because I wanted to write fiction as well as poetry. He completely tore me down and behaved as if I’d killed a kitten in front of him. The email was very much, “After ALL I have done for you and your poetry?!” But in reality, 90% of his feedback was, “I don’t get it,” and “What is this even about?”

How I kept writing after all of this still baffles me. Luckily, I had reaffirming experiences that counteracted the negative responses. I discovered A Word With You Press, founded by Thornton Sully. He became my biggest supporter and cheerleader. I won two of his writing contests and he eventually published my first book, The Gift of an Imaginary Girl, which included Coco, a novella about generational trauma and harmful family secrets, not penises.

While publication brought joy, it also brought a whole new category of reactions, some surprising, some humbling, some unintentionally hilarious. For instance, a friend of mine loved The Gift of an Imaginary Girl so much she suggested it for her monthly book club. At the end of the month she planned to have me over to her house for an author’s reception and a Q & A. I was working at the local indie bookstore at the time and watched as members of the book club stopped by and picked up the book.

One day my friend walked in, her head down looking apologetic. Turns out the rest of the women didn’t dislike my book, they hated it. She asked me if I would still come over and talk to them about how to get published. I politely declined.

Other criticism, all these specifically from men included:

“Do you really think your book is good enough to be published?”

“I hate the cover of your book.”

“You should have had more people proofread your book.”

“Isn’t that just a vanity press? You’re not really published, are you?”

Most recently, I was at a wedding reception sitting next to a relative. We were talking about what was going on in our lives. I told her that Beyond the Veil Press, the same press that published my book of poems Heretic, was publishing my second collection, Shapeshifters, early next year. She smiled and asked what it was about.

“It’s a love letter to maligned identities and marginalized communities, mostly focused on transgender, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA.”

Her smile faded instantly.

“I want happy books. Only happy books! The world is way, way too serious. Let’s all just be happy!”

After a few minutes of shoveling wedding cake into my mouth, I moved to a different table. Talk about on the nose!

I will never be a commercial success. I’m not a particularly prolific writer. I don’t have regular writing practice and my writing is definitely not for everyone. I am however audacious in my desire to continue to express myself even when no one is listening or reading what I have to say, or just doesn’t like it. Maybe even hates it.

There are countless stories of now renowned, famous, award winning writers whose writing was rejected repeatedly. Rejection and criticism can be a gift. You learn to discern between dialogue that helps to hone and reveal your voice and criticism that’s meant to silence you. It takes a lot of nerve not only to write, but to be vulnerable enough to share it with the world.

Everyone’s reason for writing and sharing their work is different. What you write about doesn’t have to be deep and heavy. It doesn’t have to save the world, or sell millions.

I write to understand who I am, what I believe, and finally, to connect with others: the weirdos, the outcasts, the unpopular, and the misunderstood. I write because for me writing is an act of freedom.