For almost a year I have been looking forward to the December publication of an anthology with one of my stories in it. Some stories I write just for fun, but this one was particularly important to me. It fit the theme of the anthology so well that I had a strong premonition it would be accepted before I received the thumbs-up from the editor. Besides that, times are lean and I anticipated the extra income. Today, just a week or two before the book was supposed to be published, I got an email from the editor saying that due to insufficient financing the anthology was cancelled. An apology was proffered, of course, but… I really wanted this one. Still, what could I do? Well, what I did was immediately search for another possible market and send the story out right away again. But it hurt.

This is not the first time I have been disappointed by a futile acceptance. About four or five years ago I sold a dark murder mystery to a mystery magazine. It was an anomaly for me because I usually write science fiction and fantasy. The editor explained with the acceptance that he was purchasing stories for issues far into the future and I’d have to be patient. Over two years passed. I would query the editor from time to time and he was always polite but vague as to when the story might appear. Finally he scheduled it for a specific issue. However, one month before that magazine was supposed to come out, he unexpectedly died. The editor that succeeded him decided not to use the story and returned the rights to me.

And that’s not all. At least two or three other times I have sold stories to magazines only to see the magazines get discontinued before my stories appeared in print.

These occasions are particularly painful because what looks like sure victory becomes agonizing defeat. It’s far worse than standard rejections. Hell, almost every writer compiles a stack of rejections on their way to breaking into print. Before the days of ubiquitous digital submissions, I accumulated multiple manila envelopes-full of paper rejections. When you add them all up, paper and digital, I have received thousands of rejections. Sometimes editors take the time to write nice encouraging notes, but most of the time they are form rejections. Like the boxer in the Simon and Garfunkel song, I bear a mark on my psyche for every one of them, but I have no choice but to fight on. Quitting is not even in the realm of possibility. This is my life. This is who I am. I’d rather go down wounded and bloody, struggling to the last for every inch of progress, than give up.

After all, where would quitting get me? I am once again reminded of one of the classic examples of literary despair, the case of John Kennedy Toole and his novel A Confederacy of Dunces. In the face of rejection after rejection, Toole took his own life at the age of 31. Years later, his mother managed to get the unpublished manuscript into the hands of the novelist Walker Percy, who helped in getting the book published. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. If Toole had only held on a little longer…

That’s the message of this essay if you are a writer or any other sort of creative person: hang on. Don’t give up. Never surrender. Keep fighting. Yes, you are going to feel the pain of rejection – probably not just occasionally but a lot. You have to accept it as part of the lifestyle. When you get figuratively punched in the face, spit out the blood, smile through the tears, and persevere. The alternative is intolerable.

And here’s the best part: if you keep at it you won’t always suffer defeat; you’ll have victories too. Let me tell you, those triumphs after hard-fought battles are sweet. They really do make it all worthwhile. But even if they are few and far between, maintaining your integrity and your vision is a victory in itself. As Walt Whitman proclaimed in “Song of the Open Road”:

Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,

Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

Carry on knowing that you are doing what you are destined to do. How people react to what you have created is their business. Yours is to continue to share your voice with those who will listen.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories, or support me on Patreon.  Heads Up: I haven’t been keeping up with my Patreon posts recently – if you head over there it should be for purely philanthropic motives.) Thanks!