Writing Into the Wind

You’ve just poured your heart and soul onto the page. You suffered your inner critic nagging in your ears. You dragged yourself to the computer every day, put your fingers on the keys and made yourself sit there. You turned to other people for encouragement and you persuaded yourself to keep writing. But now that you finished what you started, what comes next?

The answer to that question is different for each of us. Did you write a blog? An essay? A story? A self-help book? A memoir? A novel? Whichever one you chose, most writers want to show their work to someone, even if they don’t aspire to getting published. During the pandemic, I wrote a collection of stories about what shaped me and made me into the person I am today. With no particular goal for my work, I wrote about the ballet, my past relationships, marriages, careers, (I’ve had a variety of those), mental challenges and my spiritual development. When I was finished, however and held the pages in my hands, I felt isolated and unhappy. I'd been working diligently for a long time, I had a lot of material, but there was no one to share it with. I call that “writing into the wind.”

 I’d had books published before, I’d had some success, but I felt resistant to see if anyone liked what I had done. And therein lies the crux of the matter: “To see if anyone liked what I had done.” What if they didn’t? What if I got rejected? How would I deal with that?

Back in the 1980s, my first book, “Awakening the Healer Within,” was about a number of trips I took to the Philippines to study the controversial faith healers. They practiced a unique kind of healing and I was writing about the research I had done. Some of the healers I met seemed like frauds, others felt legitimate, but when I got back to the states, the overall consensus was that these so-called enlightened men and women were deceiving people and robbing them of their money.

People didn't know that many of them worked for free or a cup of rice. I did. I had been to the Philippines, the critics had not, and I knew what I’d seen. But it was an uphill battle to find an agent to represent my book. I got turned down right and left, some kindly and others not so much. I went from agent to agent, trying to stay optimistic but the multitude of rejections were hard to endure. My worst encounter was with a female agent who called me on the phone. When I heard her voice, I was hopeful. I’d received so many form letters, I thought if she wanted to speak to me, that was a good sign. But she started yelling at me in a shrill voice. “This is ridiculous. Do you expect me to believe it? Do you expect anyone to believe it? Everyone thinks they've written a great book.”

“We have to believe in our work,” I said. “How else can we find the stamina to do it?” I was in bed in no time flat, the covers pulled up to my chin, tears streaming down my face. I gave myself twenty-four hours to pout and then I got up and carried on.

Of all the steps along the writing path, I’ve found rejection to be the most challenging and the most impossible to avoid. I once met a poetry teacher who encouraged his students to submit their poems to as many publications as possible. “It’s not about acceptance or getting published,” he said. “I want you to get used to being rejected.”

Today, self-publishing is an option, but not back in the eighties. During the three years following the completion of my book, I submitted it, got rejected and submitted it again. I nearly stopped. I thought about throwing my pages through the plate glass window of my dining room. One morning, I threw the manuscript into a closet and slammed the door. I retrieved it the next day, kept on trying and finally, the miracle happened.

   All artists face rejection in one form or another and it's going to hurt. That’s a given, an artist’s cross to bear. It’s as if you were pregnant for nine months, you had a hard labor, and finally you birthed a perfect baby. But when you showed your newborn to people, they were not impressed. They didn’t like her eyes or they thought he was too fat. You took it personally and wondered if you’d misjudged your precious creation. Would he or she grow up to be beautiful or ugly? 

The truth is that what you see in the beginning, whether you’re writing a book or raising a child, will grow, develop and evolve. Have you ever gone to a high school reunion where the kids who were popular and gorgeous look ordinary and the outcasts, the funny looking ones, have ripened into extraordinary beauties and successful business people? Supermodels often talk about how awkward they felt when they were in school. They were tall, skinny and graceless, they felt like misfits, and they were bullied by the other kids. They judged themselves and hid in the shadows in the schoolyard, but eventually they became strikingly beautiful, wealthy and sought after.

I had a similar experience with my writing. I wasn’t very good when I started. I had to keep practicing and face constant rejections. This refers to all types of writing, not just books. You might want to show what you wrote to a friend or a partner so you’re not writing into the wind, but be careful. If you’ve written about someone and you ask them to read it, they may feel slighted, judged or exposed. Or they might not want to read it at all. Think carefully about the possible repercussions and choose a reader wisely.

If you’ve found an editor to help you smooth things out or give you feedback, make sure they know at least as much as you do, preferably more, and they don't try to rewrite your piece for you. Or tell you how bad it is and you should throw it away. I’ve come up against all of the above and as hard as it was to deal with the rejection and negativity, I’ve become a stronger person. It always hurts, but I remind myself not to take it personally. I remind myself that someone may reject or criticize my work, but they’re not rejecting or criticizing me  No matter how it feels, just keep on going. If you don’t buy a ticket for the roller coaster, you’ll never get a chance to climb in, buckle up and go on the ride.