Look what I came across while cleaning out a drawer in my office. It’s a rejection letter from Simon & Schuster for the very first novel I ever wrote, a middle-grade story written for the ten to twelve-year-old crowd. There’s no date on the letter. No recognition of my name or even an editor signature. It is a generic piss-off rejection letter, of which I collected several hundred before getting novel number four published (The Vine Witch).
The fact that it’s a typed letter is the first clue to how old it is. When I first started my journey toward publication over twenty years ago we were still mailing manuscripts off in brown envelopes and including a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return response from the intended recipient. I have a few of the more personal and encouraging ones that I kept stashed away, but somehow this one got shoved in a drawer by itself. Many others got ripped up and thrown in the trash upon arrival.
And yet I persisted.
And if anyone reading this blog post is a writer hoping to get published, you should do the same. Persistence is as valuable as writing or storytelling talent when it comes to traditional publishing. The first few rejections sting personally, but you build up a tolerance for the pain. Eventually. If you stick with it.
My ninth book, The Gilded City of Dreams, will be out in June 2026. Just saying.