My 20s were a blizzard of rejection slips.

By 17, I was submitting to publications and collecting my first rejection slips.

I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.

I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.

I wrote for free for, like, fifteen years; I could redo my parlor in rejection slips. It would be surprisingly tasteful - they use nice paper.

Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to 'gamble' on an unknown.

I earned my writing stripes with a large man's shoebox overflowing with rejection slips... more than 100 before I got my first, 'Yes, we want this,' accompanied by a check.

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.

All the other kids in ninth grade were drawing hot rods and cocker spaniels and getting blue ribbons in art class. I was getting rejection slips from the 'Saturday Evening Post.'

I am the luckiest novelist in the world. I was a first-time novelist who wasn't awash in rejection slips, whose manuscript didn't disappear in slush piles. I have had a wonderful time.

I had immediate success in the sense that I sold something right off the bat. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake and it really wasn't. I have drawers full of - or I did have - drawers full of rejection slips.

Don't talk about writing. Write. Don't show unfinished work to anyone. Don't show finished work to non-writers. Get your opinions, not from friends and family, but by sending your work out to editors. An endless stream of rejection slips means you need to learn more. So learn more.

I always knew I'd keep at it with the plodding doggedness that I used to master lump-less gravy and wriggle out of fitness classes; I always knew I'd get a zillion rejection slips. I figured I'd write part time while working various full-time office jobs, and maybe, maybe in my 50s, I'd be able to quit and try writing full time.

I've been trying to write a book since before I was old enough to vote, and I've collected many rejection slips from publishers and magazines. I used to keep them all stuck to my refrigerator, with magnets, but an ex-girlfriend told me they were depressing, and defeatist, and suggested I take them down. A very wise suggestion on her part.

Share This Page