Even if it sometimes feels that way.

I have a few friends that I think would be exceptional romance writers. They’ve got great ideas, great grammar skills (cause, yeah, that’s important, too!), and they share a true love of the romance genre. One friend recently told me that she didn’t want to submit her work, because she was afraid a publisher would reject her.

Ah, rejection–that ugly publishing witch that folks don’t like to talk about.

The unfortunate fact is that most writers will be rejected at some point in their careers. Doesn’t mean the writing itself isn’t good; heck, sometimes it just means a story didn’t fit with a house’s schedule/line. But, well, rejection…it’s definitely something that hurts a writer–no getting around that.

Yes, I’ve been rejected before, and, yes, I’m sure I’ll be rejected again. But I’m also sure that no matter how many rejections I get, I’ll keep on writing. And, I’ll be in pretty good company:

Louis L’Amour–super famous western writer of more than 100 novels–received 350 rejections before he made his very first sale to a publisher.

Gone With the Wind–that epic classic–was rejected by more than 25 publishers.

Before selling his first story, Jack London got–are you ready for this?–600 rejection slips.

Chicken Soup for the Soul was turned down by 33 publishers in New York. (By the way, here’s a little known me fact: My first publishing credit was for a Chicken Soup story.)

The moral of this post? Rejection can happen to anyone. Doesn’t mean your story is bad. Doesn’t mean you should never write again. Actually, it just means that your story hasn’t found its perfect home, not yet. It means that you merely need to keep trying.

(And I got all these lovely rejection facts from one of my favorite, truly inspirational writing books, Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life.)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 5th, 2006 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.