ABQ: Always Be Querying

“We appreciate the opportunity to read and consider your work. Unfortunately, we feel this piece isn't quite right for us, though we wish you luck placing it elsewhere.”

It stings, doesn’t it? I’ve considered setting up an email filtering system that automatically deletes any message containing the word “unfortunately.” 

Rejection is a part of writing. If you are a creator who is not experiencing rejection, don’t brag.* It’s not a sign that you’re doing amazing, sweetie, it’s just proof that you’re not doing the hard part. If you are not querying, you are not getting feedback. You’re not pushing yourself as a writer. There’s a popular blog post going around that a friend shared with me last year about how you should strive for 100 rejections a year, which I totally agree with. One way to achieve this anti-goal is to ABQ (Always Be Querying).**

Think of this post as a call to action. It’s self-care. It’s getting back on the horse. Other cliches.

When I get a rejection, sulking ensues. I move the offensive email safely out of sight and into my “queries” folder. I might eat some chocolate or lay prone on the couch and stare at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself. I might engage in some bitter underbreath muttering. 

But then, and this is key, I send out another query to somewhere else.***

Sometimes, let’s even say most of the time, your story was fine, maybe even good, but it just didn’t work for the publication or the editor or the reader. That’s okay. Send it somewhere else. It’s not unlike a job search. You have to paper the streets, especially early in your career. But if you love your story, chances are that someone else will too. Keep trying. Keep going. You got this. Your work deserves being put out there again and again—even when the process sucks.

“I’ll show you, Editor of Tortoise Fancy,” your voice dropping to a gruff whisper as you type a banal cover letter to The Best Tasmanian Toilet Reader, “I’ll send this brilliant story to a completely different publication and you’ll NEVER know.” Click. Sent.

But perhaps this the fifth rejection in four months for this piece. This might be a signal to move the piece off the board. If this novel/short story/essay/screenplay/puppet theater script is getting rejected over and over again, pull it off rotation. Sometimes work just needs time to “breathe,” but often I decide that while some of it succeeded, some of it did not. 

Never permanently retire a piece without ransacking the story for its best parts. Thank the story for its voice and its courage. Then grab that one paragraph that perfectly describes the brutal ennui of the airport security line. Take the metaphor that made you think “hey, I’m a good writer!” when you pulled it out of your brain the first time. Take a character or a twist or a smooth transition between scenes and reuse it. I’m an environmentalist. I believe in recycling in all things.

Don’t demolish, thoughtfully deconstruct. 

Sometimes a story just needs a fresh perspective. Try rewriting the story from a different POV, start in the middle, or write it backwards. Use your suboptimal work to refine your skills. Then query it again. 

I have a short story that captures a strange little corner of the world. I know that the setting is as unique as I’ve ever seen. But it just wasn’t landing. So, I chopped it up and turned it inside out. I conducted a thorough autopsy. I slashed a character I loved. I made the villain into the protagonist. It’s barely recognizable now from the story that started it all. 

And it’s amazing. 

No editor could ever find fault with this gorgeous arrangement of prose.

Time to query!****

*Something I’ve seen time and again on Twitter. No, you are not Stephen King and even he has been rejected, famously, many times. 

**h/t Glengarry Glen Ross

***Often, but not necessarily, the same piece. I usually have six to sixteen works in progress at a time, and at least five “finished” pieces working the room.

****Why are you reading the footnotes?! Go query!