If you follow me, you’ve probably noticed my Rejectometer. My sister Grace proposed it as a way to get me to shut up about how awful and unpublished I was.
“I’ll buy you a present if you reach 100 rejection letters.”
So I started counting rejections, and soon enough, I had my first 100, and my sister gave me a lovely bathing suit as a present.
Well, then the rejectometer continued. I got another prize at 200. I sold my first pro sale at 317, and felt sad I hadn’t started counting when I started submitting some dozen years before, so I don’t know how many rejections I’d REALLY had before selling, just that it’s more than 317.
After my second sale, I was still complaining about how many rejections I had. “Almost four hundred now! This better be a great prize.”
Grace said, “You should re-set the rejectometer when you sell a story.”
It took two years to get to 100 rejections! What if I sold a story at 99 after waiting that long? I wanted presents now, not when I was in the retirement home!
“I’ll reset at sale,” I said, “If you cut the prize from every 100 rejections to every 25.”
We agreed and lo, Rejectometer became Graciemeter, resetting on every sale. (Though I kept it labelled “rejectometer” for the public consumption since “Graciemeter” would invite explanation.)
This was a good plan. It felt better looking at it and seeing “It has been 40 rejections since my last sale” instead of “I have gotten 437 rejections.” Also, I got presents rather frequently! My first reset happened at 50, resulting in a prize and a sale!
I had the mollification that each stinging rejection was one step closer to some cool prize. Gracie gave me a tea pot, a baking dish, a blouse. She had good taste and I was eager for the goods!
The best part was, after a few re-sets, I was able to put a best fit line on the graph and see that the time between acceptances was decreasing! Statistics are my main source of self-worth.
Then over this past winter, I got 80 rejections in a row. You can see the peak on the graph. Before it re-set I was insufferably self-pitying. This was it: the end of my career. LOOK AT HOW FAILURE I AM.
“But you’ve sold so many stories,” hubby would say. “Look at this positive review you got!”
“Doesn’t matter I am a failure! 67 rejections now!”
At that point, the point just before that last high peak on the graph, my husband asked me to please close Rejectometer. “It’s not helping. It’s hurting.”
I compromised that I’d close it on August 25th, which was the date of my first recorded reset. I figured that’d make for four years of consistent data.
Now I’m just keeping it open until the next reset. It would have been 4 on the 25th. It’s 6 today.
Yeah, it’s hard letting go of Rejectometer. At least one writing colleague has told me she likes rejectometer, likes this evidence that other writers are struggling, too. But I don’t want to do to myself and my family what I was doing around January.
So, farewell, Rejectometer! You did your job.
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