Here are a few alternative ways to pounce on rejection and give it a little beating in return.

Fictitious Situation No. 1

Music Mania. Music Mania.

You are a walking blue note. The biggest fan and music addict there is. You also happen to know a fair amount about it and on momentary sprouts of confidence you’ll admit to yourself (or to anyone who will listen) that you reckon you’d make a pretty good music journalist. Or at least, you’re more than capable to write a couple reviews for a tiny, underground online magazine that publish articles strung together by questionable grammar and several typo’s. But alas, no! You do not make the cut.

So………

Get ready for angry hate mail sending week. You are now the proud owner of the editor’s email address, a Miss ‘Music Lover McGee’. I think she should know where every single one of those typo’s occur don’t you? And how about those incorrect record release dates in articles A, B and C? What of those? Who edits this magazine anyway? Remember, you are only a caring fan reader striving for mere improvement. That is all. Two or three emails a day of this nature should do the trick. Always use formal letter structures, yours sincerely’s and thank you’s are in order. You’re bitter, but always damn polite. Courteous harassment… It really is an art.

Fictitious Situation No. 2

A few last words sum up a 25,000 word children’s book you and your illustrator friend have been working on for the past year and you are insanely content and maybe a little smug. The mission of sending it to literary agents ensues. You set your sights on one special agency that you think will match your creative vision (and other similar pretentious reasons.) We will call it Ferguson and Lamberthonson Agencies. You wait the 7, 9, 10 weeks for the reply, living in a cloud of dreamed up literary success. You are overwhelmed with the incredible possibilities that would arise in the situation that this one agency would give you, this tiny, little, insignificant person in the world, an actual chance.

A rejection letter arrives shortly afterwards and blows this hopeful and optimistic frenzy to smithereens. For the next few months, the words ‘You Suck’ are branded all over your body. They float in your cereal, chase you around in the street, sit next to you on the bus and pollute your dreams at night.

So…………

The beauty of literary agents is that they have to make their addresses very well known to the public. So you live in London, Birmingham, Reykjavik, Addis Ababa or even Sydney, Australia and you apply to a little agency in Glasgow, Scotland – You go there! Walk it, bus it, train it, hike it, swim it or fly it. If you care enough, you’ll go. So if you’re foreign to the place, enjoy the sites, eat the local foods, and mingle with local girls and boys. Then – Locate Ferguson and Lamberthonson (or other chosen agency. Hassle (or bribe, play it by ear) the receptionist or the security guard to tell you the name of the person in charge of manuscripts if you don’t know this already. Personally run in letters addressed to this person politely requesting a meeting (with ‘I am waiting outside for the response’ in small print at the bottom) all day. Should this be ignored, together with your illustrator friend (or other chosen partner in crime) make giant posters and plaster them all over the place. Draw your character – little ‘Sammy Joe’ or ‘Curly Red-Haired Sally’ with a long, sad face, begging and pleading for a second chance, one last little glance at the manuscript. Bring your new Glaswegian friends and have them yell stuff in repetitive and annoying manners. Set up tents, make balloons, play guitar, eat more local delicacies (in this case black pudding, ew) and cartwheel around the place until you throw up. Whatever.

Sometimes, harassing people won’t get you very far and even after doing all these things, you probably won’t get a book publishing deal or a job writing for Rolling Stone Magazine. There is only one solution that remains. 

Find a nice corner of your flat and stand on your head with your legs in lotus position. Stay there for a while. The blood rushing into your brain and into your eyes blurs any sense of the reality of rejection away. Once you’ve held on until the brink of unconsciousness, your body will slither down the walls and fall onto the ground and you’ll be so fuzzy-headed that you’ll crawl over to your laptop and start the whole applying and submitting process again.

Better luck next time huh!