This weeks Rejecting Rejection is from Liz Czukas. She talks about rejection and never giving up because of rejection. Just because a piece has been rejected does not mean that it is not good. It could simply mean that it is not the right time for the type or writing. Liz Czukas did not give up on one of her pieces and years later her piece got accepted by the same woman who had rejected her in the first place. Its amazing what a little bit of time will bring. Never give up!
Trusting Your Storytelling Instincts
No’s and are have been intimately acquainted since I first started pursuing a writing career. You get a lot of them when you first get started, and the fact is you deserve most of them. I would say the number one mistake that beginning writers make is believing they are ready for the big time as soon as they finish one book. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyway of learning you aren’t ready is by sending out a bunch of queries prematurely and getting rejection after rejection after rejection. And don’t bother telling me about that friend of yours who got an agent after sending out one query on their very first NaNoWriMo project because her existence only proves what an outlier her story is.
You need those no’s to learn you’re not ready. You’re not perfect. You’re not finished. And for me, at least, all the rejections just made me pine all the harder for the one acceptance. I wanted it so badly I could taste it.
I’ve been writing for long enough that some of my earliest attempts at books were written at the time Chick Lit was suffering it’s death throes in the publishing world. I loved to read them, and not surprisingly, I tried to write them. And it was those projects I started querying agents with. The best part about the ensuing rejections was that they tended to say the same thing: I like your writing, but I don’t know where I could possibly sell this project. So I became determined to write something that would find a home in the marketplace.
In addition to the chick-lit style books I’d always been drawn to, I’ve always loved Young Adult. I dabbled a bit in that as well as a writer, and eventually that was the kind of project that landed me my agent, and my first book deal.
However, there was one story I’d written back in my rejection days that just wouldn’t let go of me. I was convinced there was something to it. I liked it, plain and simple. It didn’t belong anywhere in the market, but I still had high hopes that some day it would. And then the New Adult genre began to grow. And grow. And grow.
And one day I was having dinner with my agent, Laura Bradford, and I asked her if she’d be willing to take a look at my little misfit story with an eye to the New Adult market. Being an awesome agent who is always willing to see what else her authors are up to, she said she’d read it.
Then, miracle of miracles, she came back and told me she really liked it, and she wanted to give it a try out in the big b
ad world. And it wasn’t long before we had an editor who fell in love with it as well and suddenly I had a book deal on my hands for my quirky little story that just wouldn’t let go of me.
A pen name and a year later, I am the proud author of When Joss Met Matt, my very first New Adult romance under the name Ellie Cahill.
Here’s the best part: long ago when I was querying this project as a newbie writer, Laura Bradford was one of the agents I tried. She gave me a form rejection on it very soon after I sent the query. I didn’t have the guts to tell her that before I sent it to her years later as her client, but I held my breath the whole time. I know Laura has a great memory for queries and I was terrified she’d remember it, and remember sending me a form rejection, but she didn’t.
In fact, she was stunned when I later revealed that to her. We agreed that it was likely an auto-reject because I put the dreaded label “chick lit” in the query at a time when that was a death sentence in publishing. She said she likely read no further than that. But if she had, she would have likely rejected me anyway, because my strange little story didn’t quite fit any category at the time. Why? It didn’t exist!
So, while I don’t necessarily advocate trying to revive everything you’ve ever written in this way—there’s a reason most writers’ early efforts should never see the light of day—you should trust your instincts. And if a story that you think works just isn’t finding a home right now, that doesn’t mean it never will!
When Joss Met Matt is the little novel that could and I am proof that you don’t have to accept the first no on a project. Or even the fiftieth. You just never know what might happen!
Liz Czukas is a freelance writer (on sometimes sad or boring topics), and also writes books for young adults (which are rarely sad and full of kissing). Before that, she was a nurse and she still kind of misses starting IVs.
She lives outside Milwaukee, WI with her husband, son and the world’s loudest cat. She types too loud (according to her husband), spends too much time on the Internet, and can’t get enough of disaster movies. There is *always* a song stuck in her head, and she once won a hula-hoop contest.
ASK AGAIN LATER (HarperTeen, March 2014)
TOP TEN CLUES YOU’RE CLUELESS (HarperTeen, December 2014)
WHEN JOSS MET MATT (Ballantine, February 2015) as Ellie Cahill