Rejection: a fact of life for writers.

Recently in the Short Mystery Fiction Society, someone asked what was our worst rejection. In my long life as a struggling writer, I’ve been lucky with tactful, encouraging rejections. The only bad one I ever got wasn’t really a “rejection”, at least not of a finished work.

Long ago in response to an open call from a very well-known writers’ conference, I sent in the first three pages of my romance novel ahead of time, to be reviewed in person by a published author. On the appropriate day of the conference, submitters all gathered in a small room where three authors sat at a table (one was a moderator of sorts). They went through a fair stack of submissions, offering suggestions, even encouragement. When I recognized my own work, I had my pen and notebook ready (pre-laptop), knowing I had a lot to learn.

The woman who was reading my piece (out loud) got to the bottom of the first page and said, “Horrible cliché opening with the protagonist arriving in a parking lot and getting out of her car.”

Okay, I hadn’t learned that yet and dutifully wrote it down (though that’s where she and the hero meet bumper-to-bumper, so to speak).

Then she went on, “This woman is supplying her kid brother with booze—” (the protagonist was twenty-six, her brother twenty-three, she was replenishing the cupboard with food as well), “—he’s living on a boat, which no one’s going to believe—” (Travis McGee, anyone?) and finally, “—This is awful. Nobody’s ever going to want to read this.”

She tossed it on the table and picked up the next mss. The other panelists stared but said nothing. I put away my pen and held it together, hoping no one would realize I was the unbearably bad writer. When it was over, I followed the twenty or so people out the door, smiling, and then broke down in my car and sobbed through the hour’s drive home. And for the rest of the day.

But the next day I got mad. I put on my big-girl panties, went to the big-box bookstore and searched out that woman’s books. I’d read a LOT of romance novels by then, and I could see right away that hers weren’t the type I would ever have bought in a casual browse, let alone would want to write myself. They weren’t bad, I was just not interested in that style. So I put much of it down to artistic differences and went back to taking courses and attending seminars.

I never did finish that novel. Actually, I never tried to write a romance novel again. But it’s okay. I’m having much more fun with crime!