Sarah E. H. Lyons

[Written while overthinking my life. Per usual.]

Rejection is difficult, even if you’re used to it. Especially if you’re used to it.

Over the past two years, I’ve cut a monster of a manuscript—my first—by fifty-thousand words. Kill your darlings, so I’ve been told. I slaughtered a third of the language for the “greater good.” Since then, I’ve rewritten and revised the query letter, a literary agent’s glance into your work. You make a connection. Compare your book to what else is on the shelves. Provide an elevator pitch to hook their interest, reel them in. If you’re lucky, your premise aligns with their tastes and those of the market (because agents have to eat too). They may want a synopsis of your book or the first ten pages to ensure your story is worth reading.

I submitted queries to three agents this week; two already sent condolences. The latest rejection came Saturday morning (at 01:45 EST; early riser or night owl?). After reading it, I messaged my Good Art Friend to validate if I was wasting my time. I take most of my existential crises to her, having known this person for eighteen years—our friendship galvanized over Shakira while studying in Mexico and grown through shared experiences in military training, combat, and motherhood more recently.

It’s usually one or more of three issues: a poor query, a poor sample, or a mismatch between agent and story. Only two of these we have the power to influence. We can’t force someone to love what we have written.

I’m not new to rejection. Whether in love or other pursuits. The first rejection of significance was during my first year of college after I joined a Comparative Politics of Western Europe class two weeks into the semester. The first exam occurred the following week, and I miserably elaborated on Germany’s political system, all Bundestag and Bundesrat—terms still burned in my memory (like Switzerland’s consensual democracy). I was on an AFROTC scholarship, contingent on excellent academic performance, so I took a walk of shame through UVA’s New Cabell Hall to plead my case to my politics professor.

The professor in question was a mousy woman with a bob of curls and the enthusiasm of a scatterbrained genius who spent half the class trying to remember terms in English after living in Italy for eight years. 

Her office mirrored how I imagined the inside of her head: this fishbowl of floor-to-ceiling books and a desk I couldn’t see beneath the stacks of papers, tomes, and coffee cups partially filled and fuzzed over. She took my exam and poured through it without speaking; I scanned spines of books in a smattering of English and Italian while the air conditioner roared. Fourteen years as the bright one in classes to have the scales fall from my eyes.

Five hours or five minutes later, she spun to face me. She was kind—I remember her kindness above all—and then she told me people fail all the time, but what matters is how we respond.

This advice carried me through her class, the next six semesters of my undergrad, and every other trial and setback in my life—and I am thankful for that lesson, the linchpin moment.

Writing is not for the faint of heart. We remind ourselves the Greats faced rejection before succeeding. The books we love were decades in the making. Our favorite authors never published anything that caught on until well into late middle age. We tell ourselves these stories and hope our time is coming too.

My MFA director told me writers give up because they lack confidence and persistence. Sports psychology books emphasize the importance of consistency over talent among top-tier athletes. Other analogies exist, but the trend across all is the connection between success and tenacity.

We should not do what we love because we intend to succeed but for the love of the sport or craft (or whatever). Sometimes success will never find us; however, if we give up, we’ll never find out.

Despite my growing stack of rejection slips, I’m researching the next agent to query and taking my first ten pages to others to read to identify whether there’s a flaw in the form. This is all I can do and all I can control. Later, I will hack at another manuscript revision, maybe toy with a budding short story because I must.

This is what keeps me going.