Perseverance and disappointment

As I tuned in to the 2024 Summer Olympics over the past two weeks to watch incredible athletes from around the world who had devoted their lives, or much of it, to perfecting their skills, and to revel in the success of the very few who achieved medals for their efforts, I also thought about those who did not make it to the podium.

How heartbreaking, even devastating, it must be for those who trained so hard for so long to come up short.

Over a decade ago, The New York Times profiled several Olympians who finished fourth in their events. In this feature, the athletes maintained a positive perspective on their finishes — “Fourth place, I will take it,” said one — while also confessing their disappointment. ““Fourth is the worst position to finish,” said another athlete. “You just missed the podium. It’s definitely a bummer.”

Writers of all stripes face similar feelings of discouragement at times. Not to compare myself to these highly disciplined, highly skilled Olympians. I’m a mere scribbler of stories who tries to connect words together into some semblance of coherence, and certainly nowhere near the Olympus of literary figures. But like Olympic athletes and champions of poetry and prose, I’ve also felt the disappointment of the near-miss. As we all have.

Dealing with rejection

Recently, I sent a short story — a bit of flash fiction, just under 1,000 words — to several literary journals. It’s a story I’ve been working on for some time. I started the story in the late 1990s, in fact. Then, as with many stories written during that era, I set it aside. Earlier this year, when I decided to devote myself to creative writing following my retirement from full-time work, I dug it and several other drafts out from files I’d tucked away in the far corner of a closet (I wrote about this previously). This story was one I thought had potential, so I went to work on it. I rewrote and revised until it was a true story, with a beginning, middle, and ending, rather than a vignette or incomplete scene sketch, as it was when I’d buried it all those years ago.

After rewriting and sharing it with a couple of fellow writers for input, and revising again based on some of their commentary, I began to send it out.

Then came the rejections.

A few of them were the standard rejections: not for us at this time, we hope you’ll submit your work to us again in the future, etc. A couple were a bit more encouraging.

• “This is not our standard rejection,” wrote the editor of one journal, and the way I chose to interpret that response was with a positive view: “Your story was pretty good, but not quite what we’re looking for,” rather than, “This story is garbage.” So I had that going for me.
• Wrote another editor: “While we did not select this piece for publication, we did find potential in [climactic event].” 
• And another editor: “As far as (entirely subjective) editorial feedback is concerned, I’ll say that although this piece is not quite a fit for us, there is much to admire here. It’s a strong piece of writing with tight prose, and I’m confident you’ll find a good home for it.”

I appreciate that literary magazine editors take the time to share some encouraging words to writers. And we writers should also share some encouragement to these readers of our work, as many of them field multiple submissions. “We are overwhelmed by the extraordinary number of terrific submissions this month and wish we could publish many more of them,” one editor wrote as part of the rejection. 

And I know that rejections are part of the writer’s gig. Even the most successful writers have had their work turned down.

The trick in all of this is to not lose heart. To not get discouraged. To persevere like Olympic athletes.

Consider the amazing comeback story of Simone Biles, one of the most heartwarming and inspiring stories tome come out of the 2024 Summer Olympics. After dropping out of the Tokyo Olympics three years earlier, she took time to focus on her mental well-being and returned to training. After her performance in Paris this summer, she is now viewed as one of the greatest athletes of any sport and any era. “It is crazy that I am in the conversation of greatest of all athletes,” she says, “because I just still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, that loves to flip.”

‘We must tell our stories’

Even the best and most seasoned writers have their moments of doubt. Recently I read an essay titled “The ‘What’s-the-Use’ Syndrome,” by Judy Goldman. She has written seven books — three memoirs, two novels, and two poetry collections — yet, in this April 2024 essay, writes about the same disheartening thoughts that plague many writers.

“Why should I keep going with a project that could take three to five years, maybe longer, when I know good and well my manuscript could end up in my drawer, unpublished?” she writes. “A friend of mine says friggin’ all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word. But here goes: What’s the friggin’ use?”

Writers persevere, she concludes, because “We’re writers. We’re curious. We have to probe that curiosity all the way from the top of page one down to the final sentence. Revise three, twenty, forty times. Strive, not for perfection, but for specificity, imagination, clarity. We need to convince, maybe not our readers, but ourselves.

“We must tell our stories. Tell what we can almost see. What prickles us because we can’t see it fully. Whether anybody’s listening or not.”

Fortunately, at times, our stories hit the mark with an editor. Over the weekend, the story in question was accepted for publication. “Great news!” began the acceptance email from the editor of this online literary magazine. Indeed it was great news, and I look forward to sharing more about this acceptance soon.

The sooner we learn to accept rejection, the better able we are to persevere despite the obstacles we face.

So let’s write our own comeback stories. Let the rejections come if they must, but let them not hinder us from pursuing our craft, “whether anybody’s listening or not.”

In closing, I leave you with these thoughts from Neil Gaiman on the subject of rejection.

It does help, to be a writer, to have the sort of crazed ego that doesn’t allow for failure. The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering “Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!” and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there’s nothing left to write. Because the rejection slips will arrive. And, if the books are published, then you can pretty much guarantee that bad reviews will be as well. And you’ll need to learn how to shrug and keep going. Or you stop, and get a real job.

Neil Gaiman, quoted in “20 Famous Authors on Being Rejected“

Image via LitHub