A Writer's Coping Strategy: Rejection Recipes

by Stacy Post

You write a story, hone it, have your critique partner(s) run through it and decide to send it out into the world, like a child on the first day of school. Only to have the bus door slammed in your face. Ouch.

Writers, who muster their courage and submit, know that rejections are a necessary part of the path to publication. There are very few authors who garner publication success with their first endeavors. Many articles mention coping strategies for handling rejections. Be brave! Be strong! Be resilient!

Surprise! A rejection may not have anything to do with your writing. It might be that your work is too similar to something else recently published. Maybe your name reminds the agents/editors/publishers of their second cousin that always teased them mercilessly for being “bookish”. Perhaps that particular round of submissions was unusually large and full of writers further along in their journey to publication. Or maybe your submission was very, very close.

A rejection isn’t personal. But it still feels personal, doesn’t it? It’s always hard to hear, “No” when you want to hear, “Yes!” Rejections definitely sting the psyche. So what’s a writer to do with the piles of rejection letters cluttering the in-box?

My solution is to cook. I like to make what I call rejection recipes. I channel all that rejection frustration into a task that takes less than a day to create something magnificent, wonderful and ultimately comforting. That’s right, comfort food.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, comfort food is, “foods consumed to achieve some level of improved mental status, whether to relieve a negative psychological affect or to increase the positive.” Some of the recipes I’ve featured on my blog include: Banana Bread with Crumble, Gooey Butter Cake, Chocolate Raspberry Sour Cream Cake, Quiche Lurlene, Great Grandma’s Three Day Rolls, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Coffee Cake, Potato Soup, Candy Cane Cookies, Happy Chicken and Rice, Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese, Almond Bars and Coconut Cream Pie. (As you can see from the list and links above, I lean heavily on the sweet and decadent side of home cooking.)

The act of creating something edible and delicious for all the critics in the house eases the sting of the big bad world saying no to the writing I do. There’s also the added bonus that the kiddos know when mom’s baking in the kitchen, she needs extra hugs.

When the cooking is done, I’ve had my moment to mope, to indulge and really feel the sting. When the food has vanished, so has the sadness. How can a table full of smiling loved ones giving you the thumbs up ever be bad? Rejections are a part of the process and my family knows that even though I didn’t succeed this time, I also didn’t give up.

The next morning, it’s back to the keyboard, fingers at the ready. Clicking the send button once again.

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Stacy Post resides in the flatlands of Indiana with her husband and three kids. Her short fiction has appeared in Referential Magazine, Rose & Thorn Journal, Every Day Fiction and WOW! Women on Writing. Her poetry has appeared in Every Day Poets, Haiku Headlines and Skylark. She holds a Master’s degree in Library Science and works as a librarian surrounded by wonderful books. She blogs about reading, writing and rejection recipes at A Writer’s Point of View: www.stacypost.blogspot.com.