Please welcome Beverly Lewis

Rejection—who needs it?!

By Beverly Lewis

Thanks for inviting me to blog here today, Mary! It was a delight to meet you while I was touring America’s Heartland this past September ‘11.

Well, in thinking back to my earliest days of publication in the late 80’s (even prior to landing book contracts, I was attempting to write for several magazines), I remember creating a notebook for my rejection slips, choosing the color red, so I’d pay close attention to the reasons why I’d missed the mark. Such rejections were typically stated formally or icily, however you wish to interpret the ones on cardstock that looked like a funeral announcement.

So, instead of feeling blue when these nasty things landed in my mailbox (I was sending out 30 magazine queries a month), I decided to focus on the red Rejection Notebook, wanting to view it as a file for the stepping stones to my eventual success. And, over time, as I continued to hone my craft and read everything I could get my hands on about becoming a published writer, I began to receive interesting rejections with a personal P.S. (“Please send us another idea.” Or…”I like your writing style.”) And, eventually, there were some even more thoughtful and considerate notes, too, which I promptly followed up on and either rewrote the original article or story (for the twentieth time!) or sent in another query.

This process paid off when several magazine editors contacted me to do work on assignment. An amazing day! While nonfiction wasn’t the only type of writing I was striving for, this thrilled me because I adore doing research while using fictional techniques to write articles.

Of course, nearly all of those glossy, high-end magazines have disappeared, giving way to online formats. Even so, my pre-book publication experience was invaluable to the start of my writing journey.

The thing I want to emphasize here is the way I approached rejection of my work. At the time, I was involved with three writer critique groups (one I’d headed up), and I soon began to encounter the psychology of rejection. There were different ways writers in those groups either perceived or responded to their rejections from magazine editors or book publishers. 1) Immediate depression, which only served to push the writer away from his or her desired outcome. 2) Anger and sheer frustration: “What’s this editor smokin’? Doesn’t she know a good piece when she sees it?” 3) “I can’t keep doing this,” others would say. “It’s killing me.”

4) But the writers who were eventually published managed to remain calm, cool, and sometimes not so collected…but they were the turtles, plodding along, steadily focused on their goal. They told themselves: “So what if that particular editor didn’t like my story or article idea? Someone else surely will.” Sometimes all it took was yet another rewrite—after all, that’s what the group was for, right?—creating and reading the reworked manuscripts?

And we certainly did…often repeatedly, while caring (and sometimes praying for God’s leading, depending on the group’s leanings) for each other.

My red Rejection Notebook is filled with many interesting NO’s, believe me. I look at it often, reminding myself that I focused on making the story or article better—being a re-writer—instead of giving in to despair. This made all the difference.

What about you? Are you focused on the rejection itself or the possibilities that may lie just around the corner? For nearly every rejection there is hope. Hope that the seed of your well-written story or article will spring to life (be published in some format) when carefully planted, tended, and watered by the rain if rewriting. The stuff of rejection can make or break any writer, sure. Rejection—who needs it? We want our work to be accepted with open arms, first by editors/publishers… and ultimately by readers.

I challenge you to take a completely different approach to rejection, starting today. Why not view it in a positive light?—not as a blight on your writer-soul. It is an essential path to your ultimate success.

~ Beverly Lewis

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Rose Kauffman pines for prodigal Nick Franco, the Bishop's foster son who left the Amish under a cloud of suspicion after his foster brother's death. His rebellion led to the "silencing" of their beloved Bishop. But is Nick really the rebel he appears to be? Rose's lingering feelings for her wayward friend refuse to fade, but she is frustrated that Nick won't return and make things right with the People. Nick avowed his love for Rose--but will he ever be willing to sacrifice modern life for her?


Meanwhile, Rose's older sister, Hen, is living in her parents' Dawdi Haus. Her estranged "English" husband, injured and helpless after a car accident, has reluctantly come to live with her and their young daughter during his recovery. Can their marriage recover, as well? Is there any possible middle ground between a woman reclaiming her old-fashioned Amish lifestyle and thoroughly modern man?

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Beverly Lewis, born in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, is The New York Times bestselling author of more than eighty books. Her stories have been published in eleven languages worldwide. A keen interest in her mother's Plain heritage has inspired Beverly to write many Amish-related novels, beginning with The Shunning, which has sold more than one million copies and was recently made into an Original Hallmark Channel movie. In 2007 The Brethren was honored with a Christy Award. She has been interviewed by both national and international media, including Time magazine, the Associated Press, and the BBC. Beverly lives with her husband, David, in Colorado. Visit her Web site at http://www.beverlylewis.com/  for more information or find her on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/officialbeverlylewis