Dealing with rejection - Page 2 - Writers Forum

Truth-Teller · 06-25-2007, 08:05 PM

So just because a book is fifty, or over a hundred years old, you don't read it?

Shame on you.

mammamaia · 06-26-2007, 10:41 PM

not the same, sweetiepie... if the person who asked for the advice/info/help is long gone, why reply?

and it's not like you had any sage advice to add, right?

Krim · 06-26-2007, 10:48 PM

The maker of the thread didn't ask for any advice/info/help. He was supplying it. So the resurrector had two options: to resurrect a pre-existing thread full of helpful responses already (most of them being one-time posts and no actual indepth conversation going on), or creating a completely new one.

If he did that, it's not hard to imagine a few posts of 'use the search function, this has already been made'.

RebelGoddess · 06-26-2007, 10:58 PM

MammaMaia, I have to disagree.

The person who posted the original question/thought or whatever may no longer need help, but I can almost guarentee that there is someone (maybe lots of someones!) out there who have either the same question or a similar one.

This particular thread's not a question per se, but it does raise an interesting idea about how different people deal with rejection.

I just clicked on the site and unfortunately it's no longer running. That in particular is where I agree with you; links to currently dead sites are of no help whatsoever.

But in general I think that replying to an old post and bringing it back up into the main stream of what people on this site see is a good thing.

And my response to the original post:

Rejection is never, ever easy. Not in anything we do as people: job rejections, relationship rejections, etc.

But I think that the best was to deal with it, one I personally try and use for every aspect of rejection, is to learn from it and move on. I emphasize TRY because it's definitely not always that easy, lol!

When my novel was rejected the first time I was heartbroken. It was as if I had a child and someone who writes for, I don't know, say the People's 100 Most Beautiful People List, tells me that my kid is ugly.

I stewed in my anger and pain for wayyyy too long! Now I'm writing again and revisiting my ugly child. Plastic surgery was the answer here.

What helped me immensely was putting my novel aside for a while (almost a year) and literally not doing ANYTHING to it; I wouldn't even read it.

Now I'm able to look at it with fresh eyes.

Personally, I think it's the same thing with rejection. If you desperately need to, wallow, but only for a short time. Then use it as motivation to do better.

And hey, my favorite author (whom I won't name because you all are probably sick of hearing about him from me!) was rejected many, many times before he was published and became a best-selling author.

So.... now that I've rambled on for a good 10 minutes I'll stop typing.

Racheal

Krim · 06-26-2007, 11:00 PM

Oh, damn, it is down. Mhm...

RebelGoddess · 06-26-2007, 11:07 PM

LOL. What's down?

haha

Racheal

mammamaia · 06-26-2007, 11:10 PM

ok, so i can how see some might want to revisit the subject, but the person bumping it didn't seem to have that rational/acceptable reason for doing so... if they did, it would have helped to mention it...

RebelGoddess · 06-26-2007, 11:15 PM

True, true.

I guess the lesson from this thread is that if you bump an old thread up, please, please add something to it or say why you bumped it!

Racheal

P.S.

Holy crap MammaMaia! Over 10,000 posts? I salute you (in a non creepy or cliched way). I've been a member of this board for over 2 years and I never have the time (or remember when I do have the time!) to check it.

I remember 2 summers ago (or whenever it was) when I was on this board for hours a day. I also remember that you helped me a lot, so here's a belated Thank You!

lin · 06-26-2007, 11:42 PM

Let's not put the knock on stuff that's way old. God knows where it might come around to.

Quote:

usually, whatever someone tells you as constructive critism is true,

Other than in the sense of "true" as, "they actually mean it", that statement is silly on the very face of it. Think about it a little. ANYBODY you run into will have a better angle on your wriiting than you do??????

I think you're a jerk. Is that true? I think you need to change jobs and stop screwing around with this writing nonsense and wasting time on forums in order to get control of your life and be a success. So, are you on your way to do that?

Criticism falls on a bell curve like everything else.

Or course if 40 people out of 40 tell you your piece sucks, you might want to consider it. Unless they're the first 40 people off a bus from the State Home for Quivering Weirdos

mammamaia · 06-30-2007, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Holy crap MammaMaia! Over 10,000 posts? I salute you (in a non creepy or cliched way).

...thanks, sweetiepie!... salute happily accepted...

Quote:

I've been a member of this board for over 2 years and I never have the time (or remember when I do have the time!) to check it.

...well, my count is way up there only because i monitor the board daily, to see who needs help/info/advice... and to offer my email address to any who want private help [to which a rare grinchy type will object now and then, for some unfathomable reason... one of which is among us as i speak, sad to say]... it's just what i do, partly as a sort of payback for being able to... and besides, it beats the heck out of working for dirty ol' money!...

Quote:

I remember 2 summers ago (or whenever it was) when I was on this board for hours a day. I also remember that you helped me a lot, so here's a belated Thank You!

...i'm so happy to know my nit-picking was helpful!... you're entirely welcome... glad to see you're still around... am always glad to see another noo yawker in the house...

hugs, m

Truth-Teller · 06-30-2007, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mammamaia

not the same, sweetiepie... if the person who asked for the advice/info/help is long gone, why reply?

and it's not like you had any sage advice to add, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krim

The maker of the thread didn't ask for any advice/info/help. He was supplying it. So the resurrector had two options: to resurrect a pre-existing thread full of helpful responses already (most of them being one-time posts and no actual indepth conversation going on), or creating a completely new one.

Rob · 06-30-2007, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mammamaia

...well, my count is way up there only because i monitor the board daily, to see who needs help/info/advice... and to offer my email address to any who want private help [to which a rare grinchy type will object now and then, for some unfathomable reason... one of which is among us as i speak, sad to say]... it's just what i do, partly as a sort of payback for being able to... and besides, it beats the heck out of working for dirty ol' money!...

I'm one of those who sometimes speaks up against people offering their advice by private email, so maybe I can explain why.

If you ask for advice (critique, tips, specific question) in a thread, anyone in the forum can respond to it, whether they're qualified to or not. Some replies will probably be meaningful, some will be irrelevant, and some will be just plain wrong.

There's a good chance that a meaningful reply will be useful not just to the original poster, but to other forum members, too. If the reply goes in the forum everyone benefits. If it goes via email, only one person benefits, and if that useful response never appears in the thread at all, i.e. if no one else offers it, the question may get raised again some time later (sometimes just days later).

If the reply is plain wrong and it's posted in the thread, there's a good chance that someone better qualified to answer will come along and say so, and provide a better response. People learn from these exchanges, and it's one of the checks and balances of posting in the forum that a response is effectively reviewed by your peers. If the reply is plain wrong and goes via email, no-one knows. The recipient cannot tell that it's wrong, and there's a whole lot of advice given in forums such as these that is 180 degrees out but sounds plausible. So, bad advice given via email never gets that peer review, there's no opportunity for someone else to say, "hold on a minute."

My experience of technical (non-writing) forums is that often the people offering advice in private were doing so because they weren't vastly experienced and didn't have the confidence in their replies to post them in public. They didn't like being openly corrected. I've seen the same thing in writing forums, although not as often. I know some people who offer private advice via email, and I would seriously doubt their credibility. The poor person receiving their advice does so none the wiser.

There may indeed be people who have the experience to provide first-class advice via email. I'm still not clear, though, why most of the time that advice couldn't be given equally as easily in the forum. Some of the time there may be a good reason.

None of the above is aimed at mammamaia, I'm speaking generally. I don't know mammamaia well enough to comment, and she's obviously more experienced than most of us here. Still, it's not as if her opinion never gets challenged in the forums, so maybe the risk remains that she could give poor email advice, albeit with best intentions. On the other hand, maybe her email advice is pure gold.

Cheers,
Rob

Destroyer · 06-30-2007, 08:30 AM

Didn't we have this same thread not long ago?

Azmakna · 06-30-2007, 01:48 PM

the best way of dealing with rejection is not to submit. works for me

CroZ · 06-30-2007, 04:34 PM

that writingfailure website shut down in 2006. And it looks like this was a spam thread anyway - OP has one post.