Resetting the Goal Clock: 100 Rejections Again

My mother and I recently had a very eye-opening conversation. It involved my lifelong tendency to set gloriously unachievable goals for myself as well my recent mental health diagnosis from the doctor (bipolar II).

Phew. I haven't really shared that diagnosis with anyone before online — not officially, that is. But there it is. I wasn't keeping it a secret so much as waiting to see if it was true, because I've had so many diagnoses and the only ones I trust are depressed and anxious. I've been bipolar, I've been borderline, I've been OCD, I've been it all, and nothing has stuck. This new one felt real, though, but I wasn't about to go announcing it to the masses until I knew.

So this conversation with my mother, it was in mid-December, and it was about New Years' Resolutions, and it was about Bipolar II, which includes episodes of hypomania, which involves feeling invincible. Feeling like you can take on the world, no problem, easy peasy. Write a book a month? No freaking problem, buddy. Cause you're the king of the world. Conqueror. Hero. Borderline almighty.

Until all that energy fizzles out. You hit a roadblock. Someone says no. Your bottle of prescription meds is empty and the pharmacy is closed and the weather is cold so instead of getting a refill you crawl into bed and you sleep and it's been 24 hours since you took your meds and, well, shit. 

A whole nasty cycle begins, and now you're not on top of the world but being buried alive in the center of the Earth, and it takes every ounce of strength to claw your way out. Fingernails broken and covered in dirt and you can taste blood in your mouth but at least you're not buried anymore, right?

Until next time.

So what does that have to do with writing? What does that have to with getting 100 rejections in 2018? What does that have to do with anything related to Operation Awesome?

The thing is, so much of last year was coming in and out of Bipolar II cycles. From depression to slight hypomanic states to deep, incredibly deep depressive episodes. At the beginning of the year I set these lofty goals for myself and I was so disturbingly confident I would meet them all.

This did not happen. I met not a single one of them.

I wrote no new novels. I did not read 52 books. I did not meet any more of my literary heroes. I did go to book conferences. 

Finally, I had made a goal here on this blog that I'd seek 100 Rejections by Dec. 31, 2018.

I'm pretty sure I got to 10? Maybe. If that.

And not because people said yes. Because I didn't ask. I didn't write. I hardly could, it seemed.

But the thing that I did in 2018 is that I survived.

I don't know why last year was so hard for me. I've managed to work full-time, even longer hours, while writing and having a social life and watching TV/reading books. But for some reason, 2018 was the year where all I could do was work and maybe watch TV and read and then be depressed. And the watching TV and reading (I mean, except for the four months when I literally didn't crack the spine, electronic or physical, of a book) was the only way to not be depressed.

Y'all, I promise this is relevant. 

Here it is: sometimes you have to reset the clock. You make a goal. You surge forward. And you just...you don't make it. For whatever reason. Maybe it's your fault — maybe you have been dropping the ball lately. Or maybe it's not even your fault. 

Life hits us with unexpected circumstances sometimes. It's out of our control. The thing that I remind my friends, even those who don't have mental illnesses, is that there's always going to be things that hit them out of the blue and, for periods whose length I truly cannot predict, and it'll knock the wind out of their sails.

And that. Is. Okay.

Life is unpredictable. Sometimes it's possible to speed along and do it all. And sometimes it's just about surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other and making do.

I've been in such a long, long, long extended period of making do. To be honest, I don't know when (or if, really), I'll snap back into vibrancy. 

All I know is that...I'm gonna keep trying. One foot in front of the other, yes, but also, goals.

When I fall, when I fail, I'll just reset.

Therefore, for 2019, one of my goals is as follows:

Score 100 Rejections Across All Writing Submissions 

Fingers crossed. Check in soon.

What are some of your goals you're working on in 2019 that you've had to reset, maybe even multiple times?

In Search of 100 Rejections by Dec. 31

Y'all remember way back in early March when I publicly declared I was striving for 100 rejections in 2018?

Well. That has gone...not swimmingly. As it turns out, not writing anything for three months actually decreases the number of projects you can have rejected! Who would have thought, am I right?

On a serious note, I have counted only eight (8) rejections so far this year. Which isn't to say I haven't had more, because I'm sure a few slipped through the cracks of my depression during the last few months. All that number really proves is that I haven't been submitting and pitching like I had planned.

Of course, one drawback is the fact that my novel progress has been, how to put this nicely...painstakingly slow. I wrote a combined 3,000 words for June and July combined. None so far in August. A handful more in May.

You can't query an unfinished manuscript, and seeing as I was already nearing 20,000 words in a re-written but fairly polished draft by mid-March, I was filled to the brim with confidence that I would finish it off and be able to begin querying by mid-summer.

Maybe there's something in here about "the best laid plans," or whatever, but that feels more pontificatory than anything, and I'm...not in the mood to lecture myself. Or you.

I actually think my slow progress on the novel is due to a few factors, including the "middle slump," the fact that I'm suddenly working full-time again, and the freezing nature of fear.

Which is what I want to explore here: fear, and how it freezes us. And this time, not the fear of failure.

The thing is, as a writer, I'm used to "failure." I've been submitting my writing since early 2014, and had the bulk of it rejected until late 2015. Since then, I've been active as a freelance essayist, and while I've had multiple acceptances, I still regularly get rejected, both from new publications and from ones I have a relationship with already.

I queried my first novel beginning in January 2015, and out of 30+ queries, I received two partial requests. Neither went anywhere.

Failure, as a writer, is an intimate acquaintance of mine.

I'm not afraid to query ALLIE MAE DOESN'T GET THE GUY because I don't want to look its failure in the face.

I'm afraid to query this book because I believe in it. Because I have hope and faith and belief that maybe, just maybe...this will be the one to succeed.

I had that belief in my first book (hence, why I queried it) but it turns out it was massively misplaced. The next two books I wrote and edited never reached a place, plot-wise or writing-wise, where I was confident in querying them.

But this one? This one I believe in. I believe in the story itself; I believe in the characters; I believe in the themes and motifs and the small yet defining personality traits of my protagonist; I believe in the writing.

I also definitely believe in pretty aesthetics!

And I'm terrified of being proven wrong. Terrified that I'll finish it, that my critique partners and beta readers will love it and promise that it will snag me an agent. Terrified that I'll send it out to agents and nothing will come of it.

That I'll be disappointed. And that I'll turn that disappointment upon myself, shape it into a knife pointed directly at my heart.

You idiot. I can't believe you thought you were good enough. I can't believe you thought you would ever be good enough.

I swear, I can already hear the mocking words, reverberating in my brain, if I send this book out, heart high, and my hopes are dashed.

So, yes. I'm 25,000 words into my novel, and I'm frozen with fear. I've spent the past few months telling myself I needed to finish the book because maybe, just maybe, this would be the one. And all that pressure has me caving.

But.

But what if, instead, I don't finish the book because it will get me an agent. What if I flip the narrative (again). What if I finish the book because it will help me reach my goal: 100 rejections by December 31.

Again I find that looking at rejections as notches in a shield and not "the worst possible outcome" helps. I don't know how or why. I just know that it reframes the issue, and suddenly I'm not afraid of them.

Each rejection is a sign that I tried. That I flung myself out there, vulnerable and unafraid, and yes, I was turned down, but you know what?

I tried. I faced my fears. And even if they think they won, I know they're wrong. Because the way you defeat fears isn't by proving they were unfounded. It's by proving they can't hold you back.

What is something you're afraid of in your writing journey...and what steps, small or not, can you take to try to prove your fears won't hold you back?

H is for Having Goals #AtoZChallenge

It's been more than a month since I wrote my first post for Operation Awesome!

This is important to note simply because that first post was about my writing goal for the year: to garner 100 rejections in 2018.

At the time, I had received three (3) rejections.

As of today, I've received four (4).

This is not, as one may be inclined to hopefully assume, because everything I've submitted has been accepted. Ha! I really wish. I've also only gotten about four acceptances for articles and one poem.

The reason my rejection rate is so low is simple: I haven't been submitting. I haven't been pitching. I for sure haven't been querying! No one has had any reason to reject me, therefore, I have not been rejected.

This is not a win, my friends. I know that for me at least there can be this idea that if I'm not being rejected, that's a win, but the truth is, in this industry? It goes nothing < rejection < acceptance.

In other words, if you're not getting rejected it means you're not trying. [And by "rejection," yes, I know so often publishers and editors don't send actual rejections, so 100 percent, if someone ignores you, that's a rejection and it counts.]

There's a lot of reasons for why I haven't been writing, pitching, and getting rejected as much as I'd wanted to. For one, there's the fact that life never turns out the way I plan it in my calendar. Every night, I go ahead and schedule "to-dos" for the next day, giving myself 30-minute blocks of time to work on a task, and then 10 minutes in-between tasks. On paper, I can be super productive. In reality, I sleep in, spend too much time on Twitter, don't feel like completing a certain task, watching "Friends" instead... I am human, and I cannot be productive 100 percent of the time.

I'm learning that that's okay! So I've scheduled in break times! Ha, yes, I literally put "watch Friends" or "watch YouTube videos" on my schedule. It makes me feel good.

Of course, the biggest reason ties into my post last week: I've had a bad year for mental health. It's been insanely rough. I haven't sat down to draft my novel in almost two months. I've barely written a word of an essay. It's all I can do to manage these weekly posts. Which, I'm super glad I have to do, because writing is how I survive.

I have a goal. Having a goal is the first step! I'm halfway there. It's just that the step from "having" a goal to "acting upon" said goal and then finally "achieving" your goal is yawningly wide.

I'm hoping that being open and public about what I want and how I'm struggling to achieve it will help. You know, public accountability and all that.

Hopefully by this time next week, I'll have a new rejection to chat about, or at least will be able to rave about all the work I got done. <3

Working Toward a Goal: 100 Rejections in 2018

Common, and good, writing advice often takes the form of setting a goal: a reasonable goal, that is. For example, I could set a goal that I'll get published in 2018, but since I'm currently unagented and still a few drafts away from querying, that goal is not just outlandish, it's also out of my control.

A more reasonable goal would have been: query the book by the end of 2018. That's something that I can manage, something that is within my power, and something that's necessary, because I'll need an agent in order to get traditionally published, which of course is the dream.

This year I'm aiming for a somewhat lofty goal: I'm aiming for 100 rejections. If you want to know the reasoning for that goal, I'd urge you to check out the piece by Kim Liao that, as far as my internet digging can discern, laid out the original goal.

Great, now that you've read her wonderful piece and know the background, I'll explain my process for this goal.

So far, I'm really not doing a great job of meeting it.

We're two full months into 2018, and I've only garnered three rejections! I've had personal essays rejected from Racked, Seventeen.com, and Electric Literature. So, as far as places that are rejecting me, I'm pretty comfortable with these three; they're all outlets where I would love to publish, and a rejection from them merely means that I'm aiming high enough.

It's the number of rejections that bothers me. Three, just three!

It's low because, to be honest, I haven't pitched that many things this year. Oh, in the beginning of January, I had the most lofty of ideas! I was going to go on a submitting rampage, sending out a barrage of poems, essays and queries that would overwhelm the literary world. Sure, most of them would be rejected. But you learn something with every rejection: you learn that maybe this piece isn't ready yet, or that maybe you should have sent it to someone who's more suited for it, or that whoops, that publication is closed to unsolicited pitches!

Each rejection adds to your knowledge of the field of publishing. More importantly, if you submit high quality material and it's rejected because it just doesn't fit, or the publication doesn't quite have the room for it, but the editors still like your work, they'll invite you to pitch again. They know your name by now. They remember you as that writer who does good stuff, yes, and maybe, if the stars all align and smile down upon you, there will come a day when they need to assign a specific piece and they reach out to you.

Honestly, I have a great excuse for having fallen so far behind on my rejection goal this year. I've not been well for much of the year, and that's made it hard to  make progress on my writing. But! I'm re-committing to my goal! To submit, to query, to pitch...to send out a flurry of words and hope for some to land, but to rejoice in the ones that don't because, hey, they're just adding to my goal!

I'm going to check in with y'all monthly, with an update on what I've submitted and how many new rejections I've garnered. Hopefully, my journey will inspire and encourage you to send your words out as well!