Getting It: The Thing About Rejection

It has been said that I have an incredibly positive attitude. It’s true; optimism is second nature to me. But if you thought it’s because I’ve led some sort of Suzie Sunshine existence, I should probably let you know: I get rejected a lot. For as many wonderful, exciting, success-y things that have happened to me, I’ve had more than enough disappointments, Debbie Downer moments, and total black holes pf heartbreak. Really, though, who hasn’t? It’s pretty cliche, but the thing is, after experiencing disappointment, it’s all about what you do next.

Case in point: In the fall of 2005, I was a first-year Journalism student at MSU. The school newspaper, The State News, was accepting applications for new writers. I was so excited — I was coming off a lot of great stand-up routines and I really thought I could fill the gaping hole of a sex columnist. How a Big Ten school with a nationally recognized college newspaper didn’t have a great sex column blew my mind, but I was so ready to do it. So I submitted my material, which, of course, was not totally PC. I wasn’t saying, “I want to include the word ‘taint’ in the school newspaper.” I was saying, “This is my style, this is what I can do for you.”

A week or so later I was in my JRN 200 with all the other new Journ babies, and our instructor asked us how everyone’s State News interviews were going. Everyone started talking about their interviews and I was completely bewildered. Turns out, I was the only person in the class who had applied for a position who hadn’t even gotten an interview.

I don’t cry very often, but I walked home from class just sobbing. I knew I was a good writer, I knew I could bring so much to the paper, yet I had been totally rejected. I went to my room and tearfully checked my e-mail, where I had something from a different journalism professor, Bonnie Bucqueroux. She was the incredibly smart, forward-thinking, and inspiring professor of my JRN 108 class. She was organizing students to start a new online newspaper devoted to re-thinking news in a world that was quickly becoming multimedia. And they still needed writers and bloggers.

So through my tears, I wrote her back, and told her what I wanted to write. “I’ll call it The Spartanette,” I said. I don’t know why that named popped into my head; I didn’t even know what a blog really was. But she gave me the green light and I started blogging. Now, keep in mind, in 2005, a blog wasn’t a blog, really. It wasn’t like now when everyone had a .blogspot after her name. There wasn’t even YouTube. So this was a pretty new venture.

But I kept blogging. And people started reading my “little blog thingy” as one friend called it. The State News people started reading it too — and ripping it to shreds whenever they got the chance. Their staffers referred to me as “the oft-mentioned ho bag” in their newsroom. But the more they went after me, the more incentive I had to just write better, funnier, sexier material.

The State News rejection wasn’t my only one. During my junior year, I got my heart broken so badly, I felt like my world was ending. So besides laying in bed and watching “Grey’s Anatomy” and eating pizza through my frequent hangovers (sigh), I also spent hours applying for internships. Here’s a tip: when you get screwed over by a guy, work on your resume — trust me when I say it works wonders. So, I channeled that hellish rejection into a hell of a lot of e-mails to magazines. I applied for about 100 internships…which led to more rejection. I got no response or “no thanks” from 95 percent of them. I got wait-listed for the prestigious ASME internship program, and then rejected. But you know what I got about a week after that big, fat rejection? An internship at ELLE Magazine. And having the Spartanette on my resume sure didn’t hurt.

And I also took the pain I was feeling over the guy and wrote about it. Made it funny. Made it relevant. I did it again the next year, when I went through Frat Boy Rejection #2. And it’s some of my best material. The Spartanette really would not have done so well if I wasn’t always falling in love and then screwing it up.

Onto New York City, post-graduation. Working at ELLE — the big job that really was kind of the crowning achievement after the three years of turning rejection into success. Except it wasn’t. It had its benefits, of course, but it wasn’t the job for me, and we all knew it. I can’t say this enough: I had an amazing set of bosses who were wonderful to me all the time. It wasn’t their fault I just wasn’t passionate about what I was doing.

Last April I accidentally ended things prematurely at ELLE…without a new job lined up. It was sort of a series of misunderstandings, nobody’s fault, that left all of us in a very awkward position. After the initial panic subsided, I realized I could fight to keep this job I didn’t love — or I could take it as a sign from the Universe that it was time to move on. And I knew I’d be fine, because that’s how I think.

Except after looking for a new job for a month…I wasn’t fine. I was in NYC, living in the kitchen of the tiny one-bedroom apartment I shared. I was going on job interviews and getting rejected. I had no friends (Oh, my one guy friend out there? Huge fight right around this time. Another rejection!), no job, no money, no options, no sense of happiness in my own skin, no direct path to my goal of being a writer…and my rent was due. I felt beyond rejected…I called my mom every night weeping and apologizing for being such a failure.

So the day I got another rejection — this time from the NY Department of Labor re: unemployment — I made the hardest decision I’ve ever made and I moved back to Michigan. And I started this blog, which I knew I could do because I had done The Spartanette. I had no idea what I was going to do beyond that. I was just going to be a writer.

In the fall, I realized I had enough material from The Spartanette to write a book, so that’s what I set out to do. And I could do it because I no longer had a day job that ate my soul like I eat carbs when I’m hungover. So I finished it in January, a task in and of itself. And then I entered what I like to think of as Extreme Rejection Cage Fight as I started to look for an agent.

Here’s how it generally works: You write your book. Then you send out queries (basically, cover letter e-mails) to agents who will hopefully represent said book. They say it’s the most important letter you’ll ever send in your life — it’s your one chance to tell why your book is amazing and why this agent should want to read it. You don’t even send them any material. You send them one page and have to hook them so hard that they’ll ask to read a few chapters. Once you get an agent, the agent is the one who shops the book to the publishing houses.  To me, getting the agent always felt like the hardest, most intimidating part.

So at the beginning of February, I entered the ring for my first round of Extreme Rejection Cage Fight. But just like a real fighter, I had trained for this for years. Had I not had so much rejection experience, this would have made me sad, but when I got the “No thanks,” e-mails, I just kept on keeping on. It wasn’t always easy, but I surrounded myself with positive people and sources of optimism and happiness to keep me going. I’d read a, “We’re going to pass on this project” e-mail and just think, OK — onto the next one.

And although I was getting rejections, I was also getting bites, which was super exciting. Things were progressing, so I focused on that because deep in some place I just knew: 2010 was going to be my epic year.

So it had been a month of some agent rejections, and then yesterday I got a really annoying and frustrating rejection from another guy. I was not happy, but you know, at this point, my rejection tolerance has increased sort of like my alcohol tolerance did the summer I was studying abroad. Now it takes more and more to really make it hurt. So I was like all worked up, as I tend to get over guys…and then an hour later, I had the official biggest, best, un-rejection of all time:

I HAVE AN AGENT!!!!!!!!!!

And not just any agent — an awesome agent, plus her awesome assistant, two women who are so ready to work with me to sell my book. Our first conversation was a total love-fest and I’m so, so excited for everything that’s about to get going!!!

Even though all my friends want to know what I’m planning to wear to my book party and who will play me in the movie, the journey to selling my book is far from over; I’m not there yet. Now I have to work on the manuscript and write a proposal. And surely, more rejection awaits as they start shopping it to the publishers. But last night when it all fell into place, on the heels of me being so pissed off re: dating, I just realized that when the next round of rejection happens, it will be fine. I will be fine. Because, truly, if it weren’t for that shitty college newspaper not taking me on four years ago, none of this would have happened.

Lemons to lemonade blah blah blah. The point is, things work out.