#0078 Can 100 Rejections Lead To Sushi?
Another way to embrace rejection
Last Tuesday, I received an email (not connected to this newsletter) with the subject line
How 100 Rejections (Almost) Got Me Sushi
Though I write this 100 Rejections Club newsletter, my Inlandia Institute and personal email accounts don’t often overlap. I certainly didn’t expect to see the 100 Rejections idea pop up on the personal side. And what’s this about sushi?
Then I spotted the sender name: Sage Turtle.
Way back when I started this newsletter, I mentioned Sage (#0001). I’d (virtually) met the blue-haired Canadian storyteller via her low-cost writing collective, which she started in 2020. Though she’s shut down the collective since that October 2023 mention, Sage still doggedly pursues the goal of sharing her written stories with the wider world.
I thought it’d be fun this week for you, Dear Reader, to have another person’s take on 100 Rejections, on how to keep motivated to submit, on how to embrace rejection. Without further ado, here is Sage’s email (republished with permission).
So I have this Sushi Rejection project. It grew out of a VERY long string of rejections that had me questioning whether I was a writer or not, and it's been very fun. We went to the best sushi restaurant I've ever been to on my birthday, and while we were eating I was joking that we could never come back because we'd go bankrupt. My partner Todd said, "How about, if you can get 100 rejections in a row, we'll come back," and I thought that was a fantastic idea. The next day I sent out tons of submissions, and soon after I finished the story I'd been working on. I was determined to get back to that restaurant because WOW WAS IT DELICIOUS.
To my great surprise, I didn't get 100 rejections in a row.1 I didn't even get 11. After 10 rejections, I got an acceptance for that story I'd been working on and had to start counting again from 0. This has happened five times now. All of which is to say - sometimes chasing rejections can trick your brain into feeling a little more confident. Sound like fun? What's a reward2 you can promise yourself for X rejections in a row? Give it a try!
And if you're curious about the story that ended my very long rejection streak, it's called "#JustTheTwoOfUs" and it's from the point of view of a social media influencer's child. Click here to read it.
Sage Tyrtle's work is available in New Delta Review, The Offing, Lunch Ticket, and Apex among others. Words featured on NPR, CBC, and PBS, and taught in schools. (She's been submitting her writing to literary magazines since October 2020 and has gotten SO! MANY! REJECTIONS!)
You can discover more about Sage Turtle on her website and sign up for her mailing list to keep up with her creative endeavors.
I gotta say, I’m loving the reward-for-rejections concept.
Would you choose a sushi celebration? Maybe another delectable dining option? Perhaps you’d rather reward yourself with a bookstore shopping spree or an outdoor adventure.
Or are you morally above self-bribery? More power to ya, give me chocolate… Share those delicious rewards in the comments.
Winter Speedrun Schedule
Create: February 2nd–15th
Revise: February 16th–March 1st
Submit: March 2nd–15th
Embrace the Rejection: March 16th–31st CONTINUE THIS WEEK
Next time: What exactly is constructive feedback? And what to do with it
FYI, in contrast to Sage’s version of rejection counting, Inlandia’s 100 Rejections Club Membership tracks rejections over the course of a year, racing to get to triple digits in community.
Sushi as reward must be in the air? The day after Sage’s email showed up, Marcy Dermansky’s Lit Hub essay on the various strategies she used to write her most recent novel mentioned a morning writing group that often ordered sushi for lunch: “For the record, I am going to say that sushi lunch specials might help you write your novel. Maybe writing is a reward in itself, but sushi after writing is good too.”
This is delightful. I look forward to reading Sage’s story.
That is a fun idea.