Rejection

Finding Yes in the No

Rejection. As a writer, I have come to an uneasy peace with it, because aside from a fortunate few, rejection not merely comes with, but defines the territory. Peter Riva, my agent of ten years, has been steadfast. Thanks to him, my novel Disappear Home found a publisher, and sold well enough to produce a paperback edition and even go to a second printing. In the interim, I wrote two other novels that Peter is currently trying to place.

He emailed me the other day, and I could tell from the subject line that, on the face of it, the update was not good. Peter called the news tough, but the Penguin/Random House editor’s assessment of my strengths were “spot-on.”

She said: “Thanks so much for letting me take a look at Laura’s work. In both of these manuscripts, her talent as a writer really shines through—I found her prose to be authentic and moving, and she handles very dark, tough topics with grace. I admire the way she highlights characters and protagonists who are confronting real issues, but unfortunately, neither of these concepts resonated with me on an editorial level.”

Louisa May Alcott was advised by a publisher presented with Little Women that she should to “stick to teaching.” Vladimir Nabokov was told that Lolita should “be buried under a stone for a thousand years.” Happily, my rejection bolstered, rather than disparaged, my worth as a writer, and my writing’s worth. I’m cool with it.

Rejections come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from vaguely encouraging to soul-crushing, pro forma to the silence of the abyss, and over the years, I’ve experienced them all. But this particular rejection felt as close to a yes as a no can possibly feel.

Rejections. They have discouraged me, confounded me, angered me, made me cry, but none of them have deterred me from writing. This rejection reminded me that acceptance has never been the motivation or the finish line, and that, as a writer, what keeps me striving is the striving itself.