Stephen King’s first story submission—to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine—received a form rejection.

For the uninitiated, a “form rejection” is just a standard copy-and-paste response. Everyone gets them. But we’re talking about Stephen King here, so you would have thought he’d get some indication of future success. Maybe a note:

• “You clearly have talent, Mr. Future Legend, but this story is wrong for our magazine”

• “While you are going to be a famous writer one day, it’s our fault we can’t publish you, as we can’t afford to pay you”

• “You’ve got spunk. Keep writing, kid.”

Alas.

The only personal response he’d ever get from the magazine was a simple tip: 

“Don’t staple manuscripts.”

King wasn’t 14 yet. But he knew what he wanted to do with his life. In his room in Durham, Maine, above a Webcor phonograph, he pounded a nail into the wall. He wrote the name of his story on his rejection slip, then pressed the slip onto the nail.

This story resonates with writers for a couple of reasons.

One: we all know Stephen King is a major talent. His early failures are comforting to novices. If even Stephen King, future writing superstar, received so many rejections that the weight of them bent physical metal, maybe the scant smattering of rejections currently raining on you aren’t so bad.

Two: that nail. There’s something about the image of that nail. Like the analog version of a video-game progress bar.

As a kid, I remember seeing a local bank hosting a Christmas fund drive with a big poster board thermometer out front. It would say something like: “Goal: $10,000.” They’d fill in the “temperature” of the thermometer in red permanent marketer so you could watch the progress.

If you’re not published yet, you know there is a certain distance between where you are now and that first glorious moment of acceptance.

The problem isn’t the distance.

It’s not knowing what the distance is.

If that distance doesn’t have a number, the uncertainty of it all can be fatal to your ambitions. Rather than run that treadmill thinking “one more mile…one more mile,” imagine if you covered the treadmill’s status indicators with electrical tape.

If you couldn’t see how close you were to the end of your run, you can’t divide your remaining distance into bite-sized mental chunks.

There’s power in measuring the unmeasurable.

Don’t Delete Your Rejections. Tag ‘Em

Everything’s on computers now, so my version of the “King nail” was to create a “rejection” folder in my inbox. I told myself: once I fill this baby with 10,000 rejections, I can finally sit down and consider whether I want to give up.

I got to 572.

To spin it positively, I received an offer of literary representation 9,428 rejections ahead of schedule.

Granted, those 572 rejections all stung. Hundreds of rejections, some reacting to stories that took me over a year to write.

Let’s say the average lifespan is 78 years. One year is therefore 1.2% of your life. Every rejection feels like someone telling you: “You just wasted 1.2% of your life.”

But if your nail is big enough, and if your spine can take it, each rejection will seem like a small slice. The pain should be less than a paper cut. Not enough to break the skin.

When you’re thinking about achieving lifelong dreams and goals, it helps to zoom out a little.

I think it was Anthony Robbins who said, and I paraphrase:

Most people overestimate how much they can achieve in a year. Most people underestimate how much they can achieve in a decade.

It’s not the rejections that hurt. It’s the uncertainty they create. We fear a rejection is not just a rejection, but a referendum on our value as writers and authors. We fear every rejection says: “You’re on the wrong path, and the odds you’re ever going to figure it out aren’t so good.”

The idea of blood/sweat/tears expended going down the wrong path?

That does and should hurt.

But even these rejections can eventually point you in the right direction.

Rejections as the Light to Guide Your Way

Over time, if you keep refining your skills, the rejections will get a little…nicer.

Stephen King experienced this, too:

I also encountered a version of this. Rejections went from outright-ignore to the occasional “Hmmmm.”

I tweaked my system and added a new folder: Rejections with Nice Comments.

Funnily enough, these don’t hurt any less. 

If anything, the idea of being (*pinches fingers*) this-close makes these rejections harder to bear. “Arghghghgh if it’s so good, why not publish it?”

But these rejections are important, too. These are the mile-markers.

Here’s what I know about rejection:

• Most editors will give a new piece a shot even after rejecting you before, anyway

• Editors don’t dock you points for getting rejected somewhere else

• You can keep rejections secret and no one else will know

If you’re a good writer, you’ll get rejected on the path to publishing. It’s just how it works. Even the stupid-rare overnight success stories have their share of toe-stubs. And if you’re not a good writer yet, rejection will help teach you what you need to work on.

Either way, it’s not so bad.

And nails are cheap.

How to Nerd-ify Your Rejections So They Hurt Less

If you read the above and still feel butterflies over the possibility of rejections, I have one last tip:

Nerd-ify your rejections.

When I started writing novels, here’s what I did:

• Open a fresh Excel spreadsheet

• Open a new tab for the first novel

• Track every agent I submitted to: name, email, date submitted, and response

• Color-coded their response. Green=good. Orange=bad.

Once I exhausted my list of agents, I’d write the next novel.

When the next novel was done, new tab in Excel. New list of agents. Rinse and repeat.

The magic of this method? I was collecting data. Rather than a fresh wound, each new rejection was just a “no,” a notch in my spreadsheet, a new byte of data to tag.

(Okay, that’s a lie. They still hurt. But somehow nerd-ifying rejections and filing them in a specific folder has a legitimate impact on how you feel the rest of your day.)

This process of measuring everything gave me hope.

I wasn’t just sending queries blind into the universe. I was actively measuring and gauging my success.

If I found any “warm spots”—agents who responded positively—then I had a growing list of agents who might be more receptive for my next book. Over time, I tagged more and more boxes green.

In fact, one of those “green” boxes was an agent by the name of Ronald, who eventually sent me an offer of representation and sold my book.

Nerd-ify, baby.

Nerd-ify.

📘”THE PERFECT HOME” UPDATE📘

After sending over the second round of edits, I’ve seen some cover concepts!

The tricky part is that “THE PERFECT HOME” is a title-within-a-title. It’s a book about two people who have a reality show called The Perfect Home.

Scribner sent over two concept ideas after asking me for book covers I liked—which was very cool, because I didn’t even expect to have much input.

Not only have they incorporated my asks, but they have a cool concept for pulling it off! Hopefully you’ll see what I mean when it’s cover-reveal time.

And yes, it is truly surreal to think there are people out there…working on a cover…for a book that I wrote.

I’d heard that many authors have no say in how their covers look, so even having input and a choice is quite the privilege. Both my agent and the book’s editor agreed on which cover concept was the right choice, too…so fingers crossed that you all love it when it comes, too.

🖋️Writing Tip: Don’t use standard measurements to describe anything🖋️

Your prose has more flavor when you describe people and places not how you’d describe them, but how your character would describe them.

Let’s turn that into an exercise.

How would a crotchety old man with a walker describe walking 100 yards?

• At least a dozen hip-cricks and maybe one belly groan away.

• Just looking at the sidewalk, I could already feel my knees crackling.

• An impossible distance, unless I asked the purple-haired teeniebop across the street for help, and that weren’t never happening, codsarnit. Instead I turned into my front door and flipped on Wheel of Fortune. I felt better winning a BRAND NEW CAR.

Shakespeare? No. Yet it stains the glass of your prose with your character’s voice. I know who that old man is now, how he feels about purple-haired teeniebops, how she spends her Wednesday evenings.

Here’s an example of Andy Weir describing 500 meters of elevation difference:

If Weir had just stuck with the last sentence of that paragraph, we’d have all the information we need. But then the paragraph isn’t as interesting.

Instead, readers also get the context of the science and phrases like “lab-coated geeks.” An ordinary description becomes an opportunity for voice, inserting some scientific facts, and humor. That’s a big reason The Martian works as well as it does.

Thanks for reading my newsletter!

If you’re reading this online and prefer me to come to you, you can just click the button below and become a subscriber.

Until next time,

-DK