To me, it always feels like a substitution.
By which I mean, something has been taken away from inside me — not exactly my spine, but something vertical and important — taken away and replaced with a phrase.
The specific wording of the rejection is there, present, instead. Written up.
I am not entirely myself any more; not the self I thought I was.
Whoever that was.
The person in the recent past who had enough confidence to offer themselves up for rejection.
They were blithe and a little bland in their hope for success and continued wholeness.
Such an idiot.
They were different from me now, me since opening the email and reading the intrusive, vacating words — about the submission, the query.
We are grateful for the chance…
I am not sure I like them much, this just-gone person. In contrast to how I feel and am now, they seem vain and overconfident — because if their self-confidence had been justified, then things would have gone the way they hoped.
Then there would have been a neat syncing between what they planned and what happened. Posture would have replaced picture. Being would stand in place of seeing, pre-seeing. And all that followed would have been reconfirmation.
Well, of course, they were always going to say yes.
Instead, this substitution of rejection is at first shocking and then shockingly familiar. Like eating too much ice cream too fast and then realising it was horribly acidic. It was fun, but now it’s going to hurt like being scraped inside out.
Yes, I’ve been here before, but not all of me. Some of me went missing on previous occasions, and didn’t return or regrow.
As I adjust to my new hollow interior, in the moments after rejection, I think about what I’ve just learned, which I now remember having learned again and again.
I do not picture the world and then make it go the way I want. I don’t have that power.
I remember this in my body, as it starts the work of forgetting the words and filling the gap.
Long work.
Sometimes, I remember, this has been the work of years. And I remember previous words, running up and down inside me, typed and scribbled — phrases which I haven’t succeeded in forgetting.
Or if I don’t remember the wording, I remember the timing or the tenor or the aftermath.
That took a while. This might take a while.
And at the same time, in familiarity and shock, this rejection is entirely fresh and wearyingly old.
It’s not exactly acceptance, not this early on, more like accommodation. I have a certain amount of interiority, of the stuff of me, that I can spare, that I can do without and still be mostly me.
I can take being taken from.
But it hurts.
I’ll have to make a judgement soon whether I’m ready to lose some more. Or maybe I’ll act unwisely, by seeking to replace one set of words with another worse set. Better heartache than heartburn.
For now, there’s the self-conscious virtue of returning to work — which feels echoey and lacking some substance — or there’s distraction — which usually involves encountering other people’s success.
No-one said no to them. Not for this product.
I make an effort to turn jealousy into a simple reason for keeping going.
If it gets bad, I’ll read or watch or most often listen to something so good it’s impossible to feel jealous.
Hi. I am one half of the Nina Simone Collective (not the title of the book by the way only the Substack). Although our book about Paul's years working with Nina has not suffered any major rejections (our agent submits to publishers in 2025)
I can say as an author of two novels and a children's musical book series and several poetry anthologies and a songwriter with 5 albums I have experienced endless rejection in many quarters along the road. It is AWFUL. They say once bitten twice shy and this is certainly the case here.
Jealousy is part of it I guess - what Van Morrison refers to as Professional Jealousy (a song Paul used to play with Van when he drummed for him at concerts) but it is more, for me, the chiselling away at hope. It takes a lot of gumption and determination and fine-tuned focus of your inner thoughts to avoid the pitfall of taking rejection personally.
Keep believing in your work. And use the rejection to hone your craft, to polish your literary sculpture...that is what I try to do. Onwards and upwards. Craft plan and most importantly - keep doing what brings you the most joy. If writing is it, then just channel the voices in your head to keep you on the seat. If you do this - someone will find you - they are looking for just your project! That's what I believe.
Rebecca Rennie (aka singer songwriter from indie band FREYjA)
I think jealousy is, for me, the most difficult of all. To know that I was the only one of my small cohort not to be contacted by an agent or publisher after our showcase event. To have the high of my first public reading and the audience coming up to speak to me with their lovely congratulations and kind words of encouragement turn into days of staring at my empty, specially set up, author’s email address. To finally give up even checking the inbox and just getting back on with the job of more writing. I hate these feelings in myself. I feel that somehow they are beneath me. Even when I have a piece accepted there is always its twin; another magazine, another journal that rejects my work. I tell myself this is all part of the (so far unpaid) job. It’s in the job description so I must suck it up and carry on. I must be soft and yielding when I write but hardened when I wish to share it with others.