in lieu of a december roundup, I’m going to talk about probably the most constant force in an artist’s life — rejection.
everyone has different ways of dealing with rejection, and whether you’re an artist or not, it’s probably something you’ve dealt with before, unless you are very rich and/or successful and have never been told no in your life. but I’m sure that comes with its own unique psychological issues.
writers in particular have long been sharing the ways they develop their tough skin when it comes to rejection. very much a la “auditioning is the job, acting is the bonus” mantra for actors, it often feels like submitting to festivals, awards, and residencies is a lot of the day-to-day work, so much so that sometimes I forget that I actually need to write a damn play in order to apply to any of these things in the first place.
my rejection journey (as a writer) began in high school, when I took my first writing class (fiction, ofc). the instructor told us a story about a writer she knew who printed out all his rejection letters and papered the walls of his office with them. at the time, this was INCREDIBLY metal to me. very “haters are my motivators.” since I was fourteen and did not have an office, I promptly filled a binder with the several rejection letters I received in regards to the short story I wrote in that course.
I didn’t know at the time that this was a fairly common practice for writers, that you have to make something (maybe even a craft project) out of your rejections, to turn them into something digestible and palatable, otherwise you’re going to choke on the job. there’s no way around it — rejection sucks. getting no response to an application you worked hard on sucks. it makes you doubt the worthwhileness of the whole thing. how could it not? I, for instance, am ignoring the deadline for a major writing award submission portal right now by working on this newsletter because I can’t convince myself that the time I spend working on an artist’s statement will be worth it. and then after writing that last sentence I felt so guilty that I just went and did the application anyway. ~*oh, how i love being a woman! *~
anyways…I’ve been inspired recently by playwrights like the brilliant sophie mcintosh who talk openly not only about their applications, but about their rejections as well. not to flex, but we’ve been rejected from a lot of the same places. so this is basically like my rejections wrapped, sent out on the internet.
I have two major avenues for my rejections. the first is my submission manager, the trusty google doc where I log every opportunity I’ve submitted to.
as you can see, this is the second year I’ve used this doc, and I’ll probably format by 2024 tab this week. it’s pretty simple, just the name of the organization, what play, how I submitted it in case I need to dig through my email looking for my submission materials, and then a color-coded yes/no column. grey means I have been GHOSTED! I usually change a box to grey after about 6 months of radio silence, and very rarely does a grey box ever change color. I submitted to 72 opportunities this year (the application I wrote literally 5 minutes ago isn’t on there yet). this is only about half the number I submitted to last year, but that’s because I stopped submitting to poetry journals. Lol! some dreams are worth giving up on or maybe just taking a break from them.
I got 5 positive responses this year, which amounts to about a 6.9% success rate. and you know what? I’ll take it! it’s actually about comparable to my rate last year, which feels like a good sign.
honestly, I also think no response is WAY worse than a rejection. the lack of closure is a no-go for me. at least a rejection is final!
so once I get a rejection, I move on to coping mechanism #2, which is rewarding myself. every rejection means I get to color in another little square!!!
if you know me, you know how much I love coloring in little squares and other various shapes…so satisfying…and this year I finished my first 100 Rejections board! which feels like an accomplishment, even though all I accomplished was being told “no” 100 times…
but actually, that means I’ve put my work out there over a hundred times, not knowing what the results would be, but doing it anyway — because I care about this work, and because maybe 6.9% of the time, someone might say yes.
to more rejections in the new year,
<3 sarah g.
I love the coloring in the boxes idea. I love this whole piece.