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Craft Feature

Connie Barrett Sohodski

Discouragement

Connie Barrett, who lives near Woodstock, NY, has recently completed a novel, The Drunkard's Daughter. She also writes two monthly newsletters on subjects of spirituality and personal growth for Beyond the Rainbow, her web site.

She credits WVU classes for helping her to sharpen her fiction-writing skills, and thanks the WVU community for giving her practical and moral support.

Discouragement

Connie Barrett Sohodski

Back in June, I was very busy marketing a novel which a number of literate and some literary people had read and liked very much. I cheerfully sent out both e-mail and snail-mail query letters. I remained cheerful when I received form rejections in return.

One day at the post office, I saw what looked like another form rejection. I opened it, thinking unprintable thoughts, only to find that the agent wanted to see the first three chapters. I was in a state of shock, but not too paralyzed to send out the requested material immediately. A few days later, the manuscript came back with a form rejection. A week earlier I had been high, optimistic, and expansive. Now for every height I had discovered, I sank to an equal depth.

To say I was discouraged is perhaps an understatement, but it was a large part of what I was feeling. I wondered why I should bother to keep on trying if this continued to happen in the hard, cold, uncaring, unfeeling world of publishing, if all I accomplished was the enrichment of the U.S. Post Office and the impoverishment of my spirit.

What Is Discouragement?

Literally it means to lose courage. It takes courage to send out a manuscript, to apply for a new job or begin a career, to dare to speak to a loved one regarding things you would like to change about your relationship. One must be courageous to take any kind of risk, to open up to new ways of thinking, to launch big changes in life.

It's dangerous. It might not work out. You might fail. And the more you dare to hope, the greater and more painful your fall.

The Elements of Discouragement

Vulnerability

In taking a risk, you made yourself vulnerable. Whenever we step out of our familiar and predictable environments, we enter unknown worlds where the old rules don't apply. Since our usual ways of responding to our environments don't work, we are in a very real sense disarmed. So when something hurts, it hurts that much more because we have made ourselves vulnerable to pain.

Rejection

In emotional terms, nothing hurts more than rejection. If you are at all like me, the rejection is total.

If I were to be logical, I would calculate that the time I spent writing the particular 50-odd pages which were rejected was so small a fraction of my life to date, it was hardly measurable. I didn't, though. I didn't for one second stop to review my many accomplishments (including in the writing field). I felt rejected not only as a writer, but as a human.

Lowered Self-Esteem

This led to the feeling that I was worthless. At first I confined my psychic self-flagellation to the idea that I wasn't a good writer, that I had some monumental nerve in thinking I had written anything which was publishable. Self-flagellation, however, can be highly addictive, and I began to wonder whether I dared go out in public at all, lest people know immediately what a failure I was.

Shame and Humiliation

In my expansive and optimistic state, I had told many people about the agent's request to see a partial manuscript. They were all so happy for me, encouraging, and even more optimistic than I had been. Now I was going to have to go back to all those people and tell them the manuscript had been rejected. They would, of course, immediately reverse their opinion of me and recognize me for the failure I was.

Anger

Not everyone experiences this emotion, but I did. One of my first responses to the form rejection was to compose a very brisk letter to the agent asking why, since she had requested the manuscript, she didn't have the courtesy to at least say what didn't work about it for her. (Thanks to the immediate intervention of a member of my WVU study group I didn't mail it.)

Handling Discouragement

Don't Deny How You Feel

This is very, very important. Denial is a mechanism which blunts the pain of the emotions I've described above. It does not, however, remove it. Also, the person who buries hurt and cheerfully goes off to the next set of submissions or other challenges is probably carrying inside the feelings of failure, lowered self-esteem, and shame. These feelings can work against the possibility of success.

Let yourself feel whatever you feel about the rejection. It will hurt, but if you can stay with what you're feeling, you'll find that short-term acute pain is preferable to the long-term suffering of bearing the burden of unexpressed misery.

Discover the Pattern

Sometimes this will happen spontaneously as you experience your feelings. I re-experienced an ancient childhood feeling of rejection, and this discovery opened a pathway for healing.

Allow the old feelings to come up. Be willing to relive the pain of the past. This is the path which leads to freedom from the past.

Have a Support System

Consider your friends and family. Choose the people you most trust to support you when you need it. If you are launching a new and risky project, tell them about it. Ask for their support. If rejection happens, call them. In essence you are creating relationships in which you can safely be vulnerable.

I will never cease to be grateful for the members of my study group. In addition to saving me from getting myself into more trouble, they encouraged me in many ways. Some told me when I look back on this, I would realize it was the best thing which ever happened to me. Others shared their own rejection stories. All of them told me I am a good writer and if I persist I will certainly be published.

As a writer, you need that kind of support. You can find it by joining or starting a local writers' group. Check your local newspaper, library, or book store for notices about writers' groups. Many local groups are listed on the Internet and sometimes have web sites. Also, find out if a national writers' group, such as the Romance Writers of America, has a local chapter in your area.

If you don't find any local groups, consider starting one. Write a notice or flyer to announce it. Many local newspapers print free ads for nonprofit groups. Post these in local libraries and book stores, and don't stop there. I have seen notices about writing events in health food stores, supermarkets, and other non-writing-related localities. Writers are everywhere, and will welcome the idea of a group for mutual critique and support.

Don't Quit

There is only one failure in life, and that is to give up. As long as you are in the game, you have a chance of winning. The minute you go off to the sidelines, there is no chance.

Thomas Edison did thousands of experiments to create a light bulb before he succeeded. He said his attitude was that each failed experiment brought him closer to success. The children's author Dr. Seuss had his first manuscript rejected many times before he found a publisher. How much poorer all our lives would be if either of these people had decided that they couldn't handle failure and rejection and had to quit.

Imagine how much poorer your own life will be if you live the rest of it with the shadow of failure over it. Imagine yourself at the end of your life wishing you'd had more courage.

Finally, consider this: You did succeed because you took a risk. Whatever the outward results, you are a bigger person because of what you dared to do. You broke through a barrier. You created or accepted a challenge. You proved that you had courage. You will prove it again.

Encourage Others

The support system you have or create for yourself is a mutual one. One of the people who encouraged me said she was sending out her novel to a first novel contest. I encouraged her. Encouragement and support is the foundation of my critique group.

When you encourage others, you create an environment of support which encourages you. You learn to hold the success of others as your own. You discover that you are a supportive and loving person who makes a difference to those in your life.

How big is rejection compared to that?