How To Overcome Constant Rejection – Writing For A Living
Ever Been So Depressed About Publishing You Wanted To Quit Writing?
Unpublished, newbie, self-published, midlister or New York Times best seller, ALL authors have to deal with constant rejection. It is an occupational hazard. It hangs over everything we do all of the time.
WHAT DANGER IS TO A COP, REJECTION IS TO A WRITER
It’s always hanging in the air dripping with possibility. It is omnipresent and sometimes omnipotent. It reigns upon the talented and untalented in almost equal measure. It’s a constant force both beginners and seasoned pros have to live with. And it is demoralizing, for the wins are few and far between and the losses big and packed like a pound of sardines.
Rejection comes at you from all directions—literary agents who won’t take you on, editors who reject your manuscript, publishers who give you an insulting advance, anonymous reviewers who write hate speeches, and of course the ultimate rejection—poor sales. Somebody, somewhere at just about every stage of your writing life nails a NO to your forehead.
SUCCESS DOESN’T PROTECT YOU FROM REJECTION
It would be one thing if you could just hang on, be willing to pay your dues and persist until you succeed. Surely then, rejection would wane and wither. But success, as any best selling author knows, doesn’t protect you from rejection. In fact, it is precisely because you’ve experienced some success that rejection hurts even more than when you first started out.
Partly because it triggers the “impostor syndrome” (“I fooled people into thinking I was talented and now I’ve been unmasked!”) and partly because now you have more to lose from rejection.
For example, to a midlister rejection can mean getting a poor review by Publisher’s Weekly. But to a best selling author, rejection can mean getting a good review but not a starred one.
REJECTION AS INFECTION
Rejection becomes infection when we internalize it, ascribe meaning it doesn’t necessarily have and amplify it by taking on a chronically self-critical inner voice. We become the viral agent of the first blow and extend it through internal self-harassment. If you don’t learn to deal with rejection in a constructive way it has the potential to destroy your writing career. It will make you think you’re no good. It will make you question your worth. It will cause you to give up. It will give you writer’s block. It will seriously compromise the quality of your writing. It can also throw you into fits of anxiety or depression.
What If You Could Master One Of The Biggest Challenges Writers Face?
You’d have a better shot at breaking into publishing if you’re a newbie, staying in it if you’re a midlister and prospering more if you’re a best seller.
You’d be the kind of writer that acknowledges bad news without being crippled by it. The kind of writer that doesn’t judge her worth by the number of rejections she gets but by the way she handles them to move forward. The kind of writer that processes rejection in realistic but empowering ways—without denying its pain or consequences but without falling into rumination and self-blame. The kind of writer that bounces back easily from stress, rejection, criticism, alienation, hopelessness and despair.
You’d Be A More Successful Writer
You’d know how to turn poison into medicine. The kind that promotes calm and confidence so that you can get to the real work at hand—letting your words make a mark on the world.
Kirkus Reviews: RECOMMENDED!“Alvear provides an inspiring, empowering message. His final exhortation remains particularly uplifting.”
You’ll Also Learn How To…
Develop A Higher Threshold For Failure.
The most reliable predictor of success among the talented and creative is the sheer number of attempts at winning. This means you need a coping strategy for the inevitable rain of failures. Learn how optimism is actually a lousy predictor of success and look instead toward cultivating what psychologists call an “Empowered self-explanatory style.”
Rewire Your Responses To Rejection.
Wondering why you gloss over 99 positive Amazon reviews and fixate on the lone negative one? Neuroscientists believe we are wired to perceive social rejection as a mortal threat. Learn proven ways to neutralize the brain’s explosive reaction to rejection and build neural networks that form the basis of a bulletproof consciousness.
Manage The Pain Of Rejection.
Discover the 48 Hour Sulking Rule and counter-intuitive strategies like “extinction” to move past the pain of major rejections. Then find out about cutting-edge strategies that show you how to manage emotional pain the way you do physical pain.
Deal With Rejections You Can’t Seem To Get Over.
Some rejections are so painful we fall into rumination—intense brooding marked by obsessive thoughts that consume huge amounts of mental energy. Learn the three-step approach studies show that calmed people better than talk therapy.
Handle Critics, Criticism, And Bad Reviews.
Discover how dozens of writers deal with bad reviews—the insights they uncovered and the actions they take. Then find out how research discovered that bad reviews aren’t a death sentence to your book, how they are often discounted by the public, and finally, nine healthy ways to inoculate yourself from their effects.
Manage Your Jealousy of Other Writers.
Your friend’s success isn’t the cause of your envy; it’s the trigger. Find out what experts believe is the real driver of a writer’s jealousy and how to use that knowledge to heal yourself from the pain and anger. You’ll also learn how to use envy as a change agent and how to tame the natural proclivity to compare yourself against other writers.
Tame The Biggest Critic Of All: YOU.
We need our inner critic because it’s the CEO of Quality Control—it stops us from writing crap and getting publicly humiliated. But do we need its harshness and cruelty? Learn how a Nobel Prize winner’s work on loss aversion can turn an inner voice of self-persecution into an inner consciousness of self-empowerment.
Deal With Chronic Frustration.
A newbie who can’t break in. A stalled midlister. A best seller sliding into irrelevancy. Years of frustration and disappointment can dig tunnels in your fortitude. How do you climb out of the vat of cynicism and despair? By getting clear on what drives all creative people.
RECOMMENDED
“Alvear provides an inspiring, empowering message.
His final exhortation remains particularly uplifting.”
…
“A voice of commiserating authority, revealing his own struggles while providing helpful psychological strategies
to handle setbacks and the black holes of rumination and self-blame.”
…
“Sympathetic yet bracing advice for authors.”
For the full review click here.
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