#0012 Taking the sting out of rejection, Part Three
(Knee-)Jerk React vs Respond
Welcome back to 100 Rejections Club, where we submit more, stack up more rejections, and celebrate together because… Rejections mean we’re striving toward our creative self-expression goals.
Long ago our gatherer-hunter, nomad ancestors feared Big Cats, Long Snakes, Giant Birds, and other predators. Nowadays we’re scaredy-cats of literary journal rejections and declines from agents.
Though an email doesn’t measure up to a saber-toothed tiger, humans often react the same ways we always have. Our Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) kicks into high gear, cortisol levels zoom up, and we want to Fight, take Flight, or Freeze. That first knee-jerk reaction — to fight — is kinda ridiculous. I mean, if you really want to slug a journal editor for not accepting something you submitted, you might need to find yourself an anger management course. Or at least reconsider if you should react like a (knee-)jerk.
When you feel yourself wanting to fight, try to take a moment to pause. Breathe. Take a step back. Let the insta-reaction pass.
As managing editor of Inlandia: A Literary Journey (Inlandia Institute’s online journal since 2011), one of my duties is to notify submitters the results of our editors’ evaluations. It falls to me to share the sad news when the editors decline a submission. In my decline letter, I remind the submitter that sometimes a submission doesn’t hit quite right on a particular day with a particular screener. And I always state that we respect the person’s creativity and recognize how brave they were to share their work.
My hope is to reframe the rejection from something the submitter takes as a personal attack to an acknowledgment that a person maybe didn’t get it that one time. Just because one place said not today, there’s a whole wide world of possible places that will want to publish the creative self-expression.
We cannot control the answers we will receive from editors or agents, but we can choose how we want to respond.
Just as feelings come and go by the minute, so, too, do reactions. Propelled by our SNS, with its infusion of cortisol and goal of survival, we want to do do do. That’s why it’s so important to pause in that moment and breathe. To step back from that crazed feeling and let it pass.
Better to give yourself the time to reflect on how you want to respond. When you sit with the rejection for several minutes, you may discover something useful. Yes, in fact, it is brave of you to share your work. Yes, your creativity does matter.
We are in charge of how we want to respond to rejection. When we choose to respond with a positive outlook, we bolster our creative selves.
Embrace the rejection. Instead of reacting blindly, elevate yourself with an eyes-wide-open response.
Next time: Taking the sting out of rejection, Part Four