This isn’t about you or me, this isn’t about improving our writing because of rejections and it isn’t about taking deep breaths and getting over things. I don’t bother with the deep breaths and if I took time to get over things, I’d never get anything else done. Instead, this is about them: the people who do the rejecting and how they do it. For I got two rejections yesterday, which is ordinary and normal, but them coming within minutes of each other and being so very different stopped me short. I am disappointed about both of them and in each case they were things I actually wanted rather than being a freelancer just opening a discussion. You know how it is, I’m a freelancer so I’m in business, often enough times you pitch for something and it’s purely a financial choice. It’s for the cash, face it.
I always think you can tell when that’s the case: when a writer is doing something solely for the income and isn’t really interested, that comes through in the writing. This is one way where writing can be a bit arty-farty: if an accountant is doing a job they don’t care about, the numbers still look the same at the end. With a writer, the text is different. You can’t point to a particular word but you also can’t fail to see the tone.
In both these cases I was fully and entirely genuine, very much into both but the reason these rejections are sticking with me, the reason I want to talk to you about them today, is that I think I’ve been a bit stupid. I just said to you that you can’t miss the tone of a disinterested writer: I have always known that you can tell a lot about the person writing regardless of what they’re saying. I’ve also always known that I have no chance convincing you that I’m deeply charming and roguishly handsome even though I swear I’ve improved since we last met.
What was stupid of me was to not realise that this applies just as much to the writers of rejections. Usually a rejection comes in, you shrug or occasionally think “What was this one again?” and you move on. Sometimes it is a knife, I’m not saying it isn’t, but in the ordinary, normal everyday run of things there are lots of ordinary, normal everyday rejections.
One of these two was like that. I’m freelance but this one was for a six-month contract, it would’ve been a big deal and I honestly couldn’t decide about it in time so I applied figuring I’d think it through if they offered me the gig. Yesterday’s email from them said sorry, you haven’t got it, try us again next time. It was short but not terse, clear but not blunt. It was polite and it was professional. So am I: while I’m disappointed, I wouldn’t have looked at this rejection twice if it weren’t for the other one.
The other was about a short play. I rarely say this because I rarely think it but I adore this play of mine. It is joyous and I wrote it for two friends, I wrote it with them in mind, I pretty much wrote it at their insistence and I am inexpressibly grateful to them. Since the minute I wrote it and submitted it to a local festival they pressed me about, I have wanted to see it performed – and I’ve also wanted to do something more with it. Something bigger. I couldn’t while it was in contention for this festival so for the first time in ages it actually did annoy me that things got delayed. Give me a yes or give me a no, I’m fine either way.
I think the result was about four months late, I’m not sure. Might be less. And it was a no and I am fine with every part of that except that I do feel I’ve let these friends down. They got me to write a great script, they’re not even going to see it performed. I will. The delays mean I’ve lost a spot that I could’ve pitched it for in something else but it’ll be staged somewhere.
What fascinates me is that I read this rejection email and for the very first time ever, the subtext tells me I would’ve had a bad time if they’d said yes. The rejection email was Dickensian. Charles Dickens writing about a death in the family. Hand-wringing melodrama about the anguish the decision had caused them. The Royal Shakespeare Company would never be so crass but it was like the RSC rejecting a seven-year-old rather than just another festival saying nope, sorry, we don’t want it.
I can’t really tell you the name of the festival but you’ve never heard of it anyway. My friends say good things about it but I wouldn’t even know the name if they hadn’t told me. If I’d got in, I’d be very pleased but there is just no part of it that’s a big deal. I think I’m being unprofessional telling you this – I can’t help myself, you’ve got that face, I tell you everything – but what I learned from that rejection letter was that I’d have had a bad time working with these people.
Hey, maybe they just write a rubbish email. But speaking of that, just now, back up there where I was mentioning the six-month gig, I had an email. Forgive me, I broke off for a second to check it because it’s important and turns out to be relevant. Earlier today, I read a new draft of a piece I’m collaborating on and responded that I like this bit, don’t like that change, have removed this line, would like to add this other thing if we all agreed. The email I got back interrupting you and I said, broadly, yep, no, fine, yes and, bang, the article has been published.
Rejection is just part of the job and telling me a serialised drama about your rollercoaster of anguish and heartbreak rejecting me is insulting and patronising. When I work with you on a festival we are working together, we are working together to create something for an audience. When you try to stroke me like I’m a kitten with toothache, you have an insupportably high opinion of yourself and rudely low opinion of me.
I do not want to trivialise rejection, I’ve had the knives in the stomach, but those blades are rare and usually rejection is trivial. My friends are telling me to try again next time so excuse me, I need to go tell them no, I’m going to pass on that. I wonder how they’ll take it.