Thanks for this! It's so hard as a writer to be honest about rejection. For me, not because the coolness factor, but for fear of being labeled "difficult" or "uncooperative." Like, if you say out loud that publishing is just not a meritocracy and that the best work doesn't always rise to the top, you're not a team player. But, there really isn't a team, is there?
That, too! Another reason I thought about not writing this: at some point, does it become "biting the hand"? And according to whom? It's so hard to say, because it's unavoidable that selling a book makes a commodity out of something with incredibly personal origins. I'm sure that, to some people in publishing, I'm just being a whiny baby right now. And maybe I'll delete this someday for that exact reason! Although the incredible thing has been how many personal messages I've gotten from people who are going through the same thing/know many people going through it. One of the most painful thing about this failure has been feeling so alone in it--in a sea of screenshots from Publisher's Weekly. I would have had no idea!
You should not delete it. Yes, you know objectively that you are not alone. That failure is endemic to this whole writing life. That all of us are failing all the time. But it's one of those things that you can know intellectually but not really internalize bodily.
Thanks for this! It's so hard as a writer to be honest about rejection. For me, not because the coolness factor, but for fear of being labeled "difficult" or "uncooperative." Like, if you say out loud that publishing is just not a meritocracy and that the best work doesn't always rise to the top, you're not a team player. But, there really isn't a team, is there?
That, too! Another reason I thought about not writing this: at some point, does it become "biting the hand"? And according to whom? It's so hard to say, because it's unavoidable that selling a book makes a commodity out of something with incredibly personal origins. I'm sure that, to some people in publishing, I'm just being a whiny baby right now. And maybe I'll delete this someday for that exact reason! Although the incredible thing has been how many personal messages I've gotten from people who are going through the same thing/know many people going through it. One of the most painful thing about this failure has been feeling so alone in it--in a sea of screenshots from Publisher's Weekly. I would have had no idea!
You should not delete it. Yes, you know objectively that you are not alone. That failure is endemic to this whole writing life. That all of us are failing all the time. But it's one of those things that you can know intellectually but not really internalize bodily.