This year, my amazing community group KanMoWriCo has put together a new leaderboard of sorts on TrackBear. We’re not tracking words written, hours spent writing, or even chapters completed. We’re tracking our rejections.
Let’s be blunt. Rejections hurt. No matter how much I know I will get rejections, no matter how many stories I read about how many rejections letters insert-super-successful-writer-here received before they got their first acceptance, I still feel disappointment when the rejection comes in. To-date, I have at least ten rejections I can pull up. These are rejections for short story submissions as well as rejections of my science fiction manuscript by agents.
It’s not enough. I started submitting in 2017, but not regularly. Every rejection left a hole, and I would shrink back from the submitting process again.
This year, however, will be different thanks to KanMoWriCo and TrackBear (1-800-Tell-That-Bear!). We’re tracking rejections! We’re going to see just how many rejections we can rack up over the course of this year. We each have our own goal that we’re tracking against, and this year I want to rack up fifty rejections by December 31, 2026. This means I need to get more than four rejections per month to stay on track.
Suddenly waiting for the rejection letters have a different meaning. They represent progress toward a goal. It has me submitting more work in more places. Rather than submitting one piece and waiting for a response before submitting another, I have to submit lots of pieces lots of places.
Join me friends, this year, as I submit, query, and receive rejections. Each new one is a reason to be glad!
So far, I’ve received 2 rejections this year. I’m behind. Let’s keep going!
If you’ve got rejection goals for yourself, share in the comments! Let me know how it’s going! Also, if you have a routine you follow to recover from each rejection, share that too! I need to really establish a decent routine for myself. It makes the whole process as “fun” as a rejection could ever be.
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