I started out by writing articles for various magazines.
I was lucky. The first piece I wrote was accepted and led to several years of solid work. It was only when I started to write fiction that I discovered rejection, and how painful it can be.
Amongst short story writers, you might think that how successful they are would correspond to how much talent they have, but that’s often not the case. It can be their reaction to rejection that makes the difference between success and failure.
I can safely say that I get more rejections than most writers.
The reason is simple. I write vast numbers of stories, many of which are rejected by at least one editor or competition judge. In fact, some of my stories get rejected several times.
Being rejected stopped bothering me when I finally learned something very important. Stories and articles are rejected for all kinds of reasons. The editor may have just bought something on a similar theme. It may be a good story but the wrong length, or written in the first person when they prefer the third person.
Unfortunately, editors are usually too busy to say why they are rejecting your work. It may simply be a case of bad timing, and that certainly isn’t a good reason to give up. Try the piece somewhere else.
If you receive a rejection note on which an editor or publisher has written a comment, read it. Take note of it, and if you can, act on it.
If they have taken the trouble to write something rather than sending a standard rejection letter or note, that often means they think your writing has merit.
Take it as a good sign, and send them something else as soon as you can. .
