Rejections Suck

Today (well, yesterday, but it was today at the time of writing) has been a rotten day. Two days ago I got a rejection for a thing I really, really wanted. I got shortlisted, which was nice, but still rejected. Then yesterday I got a rejection that I’d kind of expected but got angry about the way it was handled. Then today I got three rejections, including one that I’d had high hopes for. It’s been a pretty galling time, and it’s probably not over – I’m due to hear back on three more things within the next two days. One of them I’m expecting to be rejected for. One I’m expecting but desperately hoping I’m wrong. And one is something I’m on the shortlist for when I didn’t expect to be, so I have no idea what to think. I’m bracing myself for a rough weekend.

Normally I find rejections a lot easier to handle. They’re usually spaced out. Some of them hurt, because when you’ve put a lot of work into an application and fallen in love with the project you pitched it’s always galling when the answer’s no… but individual stab wounds to the heart and ego are manageable, and there’s usually a sprinkling of acceptances to soothe the stings. When they’re bunched together like this, though, it feels relentless.

The thing is, I know all the reasons not to get upset by rejection. I’ve been on selection panels myself and I know that perfectly valid (and sometimes extremely impressive) applications have to be rejected for any number of reasons. Sometimes it comes down to a simple gut instinct for how things fit together. I’m well aware that rejection doesn’t necessarily mean that your application was terrible (though that is a possibility).

This is why I like being told when I’ve made the long or shortlist. I know that not everyone does, I have some friends who hate to be told that. Personally, I appreciate the reassurance that my application wasn’t the first one in the bin. That mine wasn’t the one that got passed around to gleeful cries of “look at this joker!” (This might be something that only happens in the depths of a fevered and anxious writer’s brain, but still, if I’m shortlisted then it can’t have happened at all. Unless they’re shortlisting me for sheer comedy value. Oh god.)

However, knowing better than to get upset and actually remaining un-upset are two very different things. I can brush off an individual rejection, but five within three days? It hurts, and I will admit to feeling somewhat bruised and in a deep sulk.

The worst thing about it is feeling powerless. I can’t change a damn thing. There’s no undoing the applications, no restoring the moment I began writing them and using a different project instead. There’s no changing the lifetime of experiences that brought me to the point where I felt the need to make these particular shows. And of course there’s no arguing with the decisions made, tempting though it always is.

Today I feel useless. I feel like there’s no point in continuing with any of this, like nobody cares about my work anyway and all the work I’ve put into honing my craft is worth nothing. Time is passing, life is short and progress isn’t happening fast enough. I feel resentful towards the years I lost to events that were completely outwith my control. I feel angry and cut off and as if nothing I’ve ever done has any kind of value. I feel like everything is personal even when I know damn well it can’t be.

Such is the power of the sulk that I also feel resentful towards the good things that are happening because they interfere with the strop-narrative. Yes, I have the new spoken word show and I’ve got bookings for it and it’s shaping up well. Yes, a show that I wrote is going to Prague. Yes, I got a Tom McGrath award to help with one of my works in progress. These are all things to be happy about, which means that I can’t even just be allowed a straightforward woe-is-me outpouring. Clearly the entire universe is out to torture me by denying me abject misery.

The solution, of course, is to buck the fuck up, end the sulk and get on with things. Have the genuine emotional reaction that only my nearest and dearest get to see, turn the entertaining/potentially useful bits into a blog post for the handy dopamine hit that comes from online attention-whoring, go out in the sunshine, restock the cat litter and maybe buy a Crème Egg, then write the things that need to be written today. Read a bit. Do the next round of applications. Get over it. Get over it because freelance life means the next rejection is always just round the corner and if it hits while I’m still in this mood it’s going to be harder to bounce back from. Get over it because freelance life is better than the alternatives available to me and for all its precarity I’m generally pretty happy with it. Get over it because it’s annoying and so is everything else, but at least I can choose whether to annoy myself.

I’m pretty sure I intended this post to be a bit more positive and potentially helpful than this. Oh well. Too full of rage for that today.