Today, I want to talk about rejection. It can be a beast. I know it, and, some of you know it, too, that the path to success or something like it can often be paved with the stuff.
The lure of questioning ourselves in those moments is almost too great. It’s easy to wonder if it means our ideas are any good, whether or not we have the writing chops we think we do, or, if it’s a reflection on our message and our thought-leadership. Fight that. Please.
Sometimes rejection is a “no,” and sometimes it’s silence. But, I invite you to consider this: we never have any idea what’s going on at a given outlet. Maybe we can guess because it’s a big day for news, but maybe a personnel change happened that we have no idea about, or maybe an editor is overwhelmed with life and email that week, or has a migraine and went home, or wants to focus less on politics with the space they are allotted that day, or they accepted a similar piece seconds before your piece came in. You. Never. Know.
Often a “no” is an insight, and it behooves us to read it accurately and well, knowing we are not owed an explanation, and so any reply at all from an editor is a gift. But, the key is that persistence wins. (A colleague once pointed out, after my first book received its fourth rejection slip and I was beginning to fret, that even Dr. Seuss was initially rejected nearly 30 times, and there are tons of other tales about publication success paths that were littered with rejection.) Sometimes it’s just a matter of updating the news hook a few times, or putting it in the right hands. The most important part is to keep at it.
Words of inspiration from Viola Davis at the Time 100 Gala: “We're at this huge point in our lives in history where we need to step into our power and not give it over to anyone or apologize for it...and understand that in whatever we do. We deserve to be there and we deserve to have a voice."