As a writer, rejection is something you have to get used to if you want
your work out there. At first you may hesitantly show some writing to a loved
one, then you may tentatively show a few more people, if you go to a writing
class, you’ll be reading your work to other people there too. These are the
baby steps that are often necessary for us to begin feeling like we are actual
‘writers’.
Of course anyone can say they are a writer, but I feel it takes a leap
into that relationship with a reader that turns tenuous scribblings into
something more tangible. Of course we can all journal, write down our
angsty/gorgeous/poetic/catastrophic/whatever words, and that’s totally fine if
that’s all we want to do, it’s a way of expressing ourselves, just getting it
out of our system. But, if you have something to say, it’s good to feel that
someone will listen to it.
By doing that though, we risk that people won’t like what we write.
That we won’t be good enough. I think all writers have that critic on their shoulder
at times, the one that says you can’t
write, you’re rubbish/boring/predictable, no one will want to read anything you
write etc etc, the critic that stops
us writing, and keeps everything we do write private. It’s hard to take the
risk of hearing that voice from real people – it’s bad enough if we think it,
if other people do, then it MUST be true.
And the thing you learn, when you do start getting out there, when you
do start sharing your work, is that most people will be kind, most people will
like something in your writing, but some people won’t. And that is ok. Reading
and writing is such a subjective personal thing, that just because someone
doesn’t like what you do, it doesn’t mean it’s rubbish. It may mean it needs
more work to realise its potential, or they may just not like your style. Of
course sometimes there will be things that just aren’t working at this point in
time, pieces it’s worth putting to one side, or even abandoning. But that’s
just one piece of work, it’s not true for everything you write, and it doesn’t mean
you are a crap person.
And when it comes to sending your work out for publication and
competitions, the rejections come in thick and fast. It’s disappointing when
your prize poem doesn’t make it into print, or doesn’t quite get placed in that
competition. But it’s important to remember that these are often a numbers
game. If a journal receives hundreds of submissions and can only print twenty,
or ten, or if that judge has to pick only 3 winners – then you’re more likely
not to be successful. It may be that your work isn’t up to the necessary
standard, but its also possible that it didn’t quite fit what they were looking
for, or they’d had something on a similar theme last issue, or they just didn’t
like your style (remember the subjectivity thing we’ve got going on).
So I think the message is to take on board constructive criticism, to
not take rejection personally, and to keep on submitting. The more you send
out, the more you risk rejections, but also the more chance you have of being
successful.
And on that positive note, I’ll share what sparked the
idea for this post. The Wise Words Festival asked people to send in short
poems to be selected to be displayed in shop windows throughout the festival,
and one of mine is going to be up in Costa’s in Canterbury. So all the time I’ve
spent sending things out over the last few weeks has paid off.
