How to Stay Motivated When Submitting and Facing Rejection
Let’s be real: as writers, receiving rejections can be hard. Even as I write the first few words of this post, a rejection email popped into my inbox. Of course, this is an expected part of submitting and getting your work out there, but that doesn’t always make the rejection easier when they arrive. So how do you stay motivated and keep pushing on?
Since I started, dedicatedly, submitting my poetry to journals and magazines last year, I’ve been working towards collecting 100 rejections in a year. So far in 2021, I’ve submitted to more than 80 journals and, out of those, 13 individual journals have accepted pieces. The remaining I’ve either not heard back from yet, have withdrawn from consideration, or gotten rejected. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of red in my submissions tracker.
So how do I stay motivated to continue submitting? There’s still bound to be some days that a rejection comes in and it stings a bit, however, I’ve come across some things in the last year that are great sources of motivation. Here are some of the ways I remain inspired to submit in the face of rejection:
That one acceptance could be just around the corner
I know, it may sound a little cheesy. But it’s true. If your goal is to get your work out into the world, then you have to submit and fight any self-rejection, knowing that dream acceptance you’ve been waiting for could be on the horizon. I’ve had poems that were rejected dozens of times that I submitted for years (back when I only submitted once or twice in college) before they found a home with the right journal. Sometimes it just takes a few extra tries for that right place to come along.
It challenges me to keep improving my writing
If a piece gets rejected a certain amount of times, I know it may be time to do some additional edits. By the same token, if I get rejected from a dream journal multiple times, then I know I need to keep writing and submit even stronger pieces next time in the hopes it will be what they’re looking for. There are some places that I just don’t want to give up hope that I’ll see my writing there someday so if I receive a rejection, I’ll be able to submit the next time with a brand new packet that could be one step closer to being a better fit/an acceptance.
The wins, no matter how big or small, along the way
More recently, I’ve started receiving a few personalized/tiered rejections and those almost-but-not-quite responses from editors. While it can seem frustrating, this ultimately feels particularly encouraging at times to know your work resonated in some way and that it came this close to moving further along in a journal’s review process. These wins are noted in my submissions tracker so I know to submit again in the future.
Most of all, I want my work to find its way to people...
And that will always keep me motivated. I want my words to resonate with people, for the right words to find them at just the moment they need them. So many of my poems (and my chapbook) focus on mental illness and it’s always incredible to hear how a certain piece affects someone. I remain motivated to keep submitting because I want my words out in the world and I’m grateful every time someone allows for that to happen. Even when facing rejection, I’m hopeful the piece will one day be exactly where it needs to be.
As has been said by so many others when it comes to submitting and rejection, remember it’s not personal. The more familiar with rejection you get, the clearer this becomes. So keep trying when it comes to those pieces you really believe in because that desired “congratulations!” email may be closer than you think!
