Rejecting Rejection with author Janet Gurtler

Hey everyone! It’s time again for our favorite part of Monday mornings. In this week’s blog about Rejecting Rejection: How to Say Yes to Yourself When the World Says No, author Janet Gurtler talks about her long term relationship with rejection and how it ultimately led her to publishing her first novel. 

Getting Schooled in the Art of Rejection

 by Janet Gurtler

 

Before I began writing books, before I had any notion that I was going to seriously pursue publication, I had the perfect job. The perfect job for learning how to deal with rejection.

I was a sales representative and worked for major consumer good companies like Kraft and Diageo. I spent my days asking store managers to buy more “stuff’ and put more of my products on display. Every store I went into I was supposed to ask for something.  Lots of times I was told “no.” It used to piss me off, or make me upset, but thankfully the wins, they were so sweet.  I even took professional courses on overcoming objections, which simply put was a fancy way of learning how to deal with rejection.

So I dealt with rejection daily and along the way I learned something from a great sales manager, a man who taught me a valuable lesson about rejection. Take yourself out of the equation, he said. Don’t take the no or the rejection personally.  It was hard to do, but it really worked. They weren’t rejecting me, they were rejecting an idea or a product.  And you know what? It’s still true. Even in writing. They’re not rejecting ME, they’re rejecting this one piece of work. For any number of reasons, some which have nothing to do with me,

So, these years of training to be rejected, led up to what I really wanted to do with my life and I began writing books. And after I wrote the first one, I was hooked.  Of course, it was pretty bad. So, I took writing courses, got feedback from professionals and from friends and went through new stages of rejection as I tried to get an agent and get published. Rejections would lead to different stages of anger, grief and doubt depending on the day, my mood or maybe the rejection itself, but I learned that I really am as stubborn as people sometimes tell me. Eventually I progressed to the exciting, “good rejection” stage.  A couple of editors wrote me personal notes, and asked for revisions.

Somewhere in this process, I saw an ad looking for write for hire writers to write a mid-grade series. I sent in my sample and was stunned and thrilled when an editor contacted me to tell me I was in. They liked my sample. They sent me a book bible and a contract to sign and then they sent me the first payment when I signed that contract. I was a paid writer! An author! Validated! I worked hard, writing the book with the character and the bible in hand.  When I sent the finished product in, I waited. And then it came.

The rejection that almost broke me as a writer. A phone call from the editor.

The work I submitted didn’t reflect the voice of the series.  The character voices were off. Everything I wrote was completely unusable, they would have to hire a new writer to start from scratch, I could keep the portion I’d already been paid as a kill fee, but that  was so far from the point, it seemed humiliating to keep it.

I hung up the phone and then I fell apart. I lost it. I’m talking full body cry. I was humiliated and embarrassed and ashamed.  I felt like a phony, a fraud and most of all, a bad writer which meant to me a bad person. I’d told people I’d been hired to write a book.  How could I admit that I’d been fired for sucking so badly my words couldn’t even be salvaged? It was a really black moment, probably the worst I’ve had as a writer.

And yet, somehow, after some time had passed, I don’t even remember how much time now, but there were some dark days, I somehow decided to reject even that rejection. Maybe those characters just weren’t my voice. Maybe I could write my own style and find my way. I wrote again, and I started submitting again.

That rejection was hard, really really hard but somehow I remembered the words of my old sales manager. Take YOU out of the equation. They didn’t reject ME. They rejected the story I wrote.  I could write more. Do it in my own voice, my own way.

Onwards.

 

Janet Gurtler has seven books published to date and is a bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Young Adult Fiction.  Reviewers have compared Janet’s work to Sarah Dessen, Jody Piccoult and Judy Blume.  Her most recent book, Sixteen Things I Thought Were True was selected as a JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION for Spring 2014.

Janet’s work has been selected as Canadian Children’s Book Center, Best Book for Teens. Her books have also been selected as top YA Fiction Titles for The Pennsylvania School Librarians Association and included in the Bank Street Books Top 100 Fiction.  Janet is a double Rita Finalist and has been nominated for YALSA awards.

Visit Janet at www.janet-gurtler.com or find her on twitter @janetgurtler.