reflect

on smarting with rejection and learning to reflect on feedback and wins

To my dear Musers

Today, the sun came out and boy it felt great.

Obviously, not a true depiction of me, but not far off my recent mood… generated with AI

I’ve been in a bit of slump since I received a rejection from a publisher who I had really wanted for my historical fiction, the same unpublished manuscript that was recently longlisted for an unpublished manuscript prize. Ah, the rollercoaster of this writing game.

The feedback from the publisher was useful, however, when I first read the word ‘unfortunately’ I didn’t think so. Instinctively, I moved the email to my ‘rejections’ file. It’s a habit I have to steel myself against rejections. This week, I opened the email again to read the feedback and there is something that I can take from it.

So, given that’s it’s the middle of the year and in the spirit of buoying my writing brain on, I’m reflecting on my writing life so far this year with wins and lessons.

Wins

Probably the biggest win for my writing this year has been having my manuscript longlisted for the Gloria Burley Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript.

Other wins have been:

• meeting so many amazing writers at my writing retreats (TBH, this has been the best thing that has happened for me this year along with making the decision to study coaching and start coaching people – if you’ve seen me lately you may have heard me banging on about how great it is and what an incredible privilege it has been)

• gaining more readers here (that’s you, thank you!)

• submitting my words out to 31 different things

• going to the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers Centre to write for an entire two weeks (and seeing Tracy and meeting Jacie and Pip)

• getting interest from the ASA Literary Speed Dating

• being accepted to Varuna for a week in September

• hearing that one of my sons reads this (even if only to point out when I should have spent more time editing it)

• getting back to running the creative writing workshops at the local neighbourhood house (yay for communities!).

Slightly less tangible wins are feeling great as I work through a new draft of my newest manuscript (rom-com). It’s been a joy to write from the beginning and has even seen me laughing out loud at times.

Lessons

Rejection of a manuscript is not a reflection of me

With every rejection, there is a moment where I think that my words as shite and I should just give it up. I know I’m not alone here – but it is unhelpful thinking and I know that it’s not true. I know there are people who love reading my words, and when I interrogate rejection emails, they tell me this as well. Instead, the learning is more that the story is not for them. Maybe that particular story won’t find a home, but I’m not done yet with looking for one.

One great thing about these retreats I run is that I hear, often, from amazing and well published writers that there have been times when they have received a lot of rejections, that their publisher has dumped them, that the book they thought would do amazingly flopped. Through these stories, I am learning to steel myself and to detach myself from the words/story. A rejection of my manuscript is just that it wasn’t for them.

Let rejections sit before revisiting

Years ago, when I did a writing and editing course, we had to workshop and submit loads of words. Sometimes the feedback stung, badly. I would try to find the golden threads in the feedback to see how I could improve my work, but often the sting was in the way of me being able to truly reflect and learn from it. From it, I formed opinions about some of the work that I had submitted and filed that in the metaphorical bin never to see the light of day again. More recently, I came across one of these pieces of feedback that I had felt back in the day was so damning, and reread it only to see that there were good points in there, that it was not ‘awful’.

If the feedback hurts, put it away until you’re ready. Then reread with objectivity and see what is useful.

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Other things

Writing

This week, I am heading off for four days with my closest writing pals (I can’t wait to spend time with them!) to work on my current manuscript, which is great as these cold and grey mornings have seen me struggling to get up early to write.

Hey, writers! Are you getting my writing opps and comps newsletters?

Reading

My reading has sloooowed down. I’m also not loving any audiobooks at the moment so am taking the time to catch up on podcasts (yay for podcasts!). My current read is Ghost Cities by Siang Lu, which is a wonderful (absurdist?) novel of Chinese history and modern society and work. Wry and clever.

What are you reading?

Watching

• The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Harrowing. Hard to watch/look away.

• Glow. Great 80s fashion and women wrestling premise

• Mullholland Drive. Finally got around to watching it and was left feeling, well, confused, which I think was Lynch’s point. May have to watch again.

Five things

1. A great article on Jane Friedman’s website by Allison K Williams ‘The Platform Authors Need Now (That Isn’t Social Media)’

2. Emails. I’ve banged on about this before, and I’m sure this will not be the last of it. My inbox is like the magic sack of potatoes. As soon as I empty it, it refills. I am trying to stay on top of it by scheduling time to deal with it every day. Happy to take on any tips …

3. I’ve just signed up to do the One Foot Forward challenge again this October to raise money for mental health research. I do this every year as I know too many people who have struggled with mental health and people who have lost their lives to it. It’s my way of reminding myself of their struggle, of my love for them. Want to join me?

4. Art is a wonderful thing and as a huge lover of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I am often reminded to take time to appreciate art. Two great things on my radar are:

   1. My lovely friend

      Stacey McCall
      has a solo exhibition coming up in Geelong at Boom Gallery. Her paintings focus on the joys of the everyday and domesticity. They are beautiful. The opening is on August 3.
      staceymccallart

      

      A post shared by @staceymccallart

   2. My talented sister

      Sally Darlison
      also has an exhibition coming up in October. You can see a sneak peak of the stunning art that will be at that exhibition here

5. In 2010, my son scooped his hand through the sand on Cable Beach and found a pearl. This year, I swam in the water at Cable Beach and lost my fitbit. Not really a fair exchange.

Thank you dear Musers for reading and stay warm.

Til next time

x M