Apr 2021
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CJYoung
Apr '21

Okay, so I've been feeling really inspired to talk about this lately. So, rejection sucks. We all know it, we've all felt it. In one way or another, it's hard to deal with.

When it comes to your writing or your comics, it can be especially hard to stay motivated when you're feeling rejected. However, I've come to realize that rejection isn't the end. If your story idea gets rejected, or your completed novel, or your comic, or your art style, or anything at all, there's still a silver lining: a lesson learned.

I know that might sound silly, but even as a premium author I deal with plenty of rejection. Not everything is easy just because we get one book or one comic out there, nor does it mean you'll continue to find success just because you had one good idea. On a weekly basis things that I've written for a chapter need to be changed, ideas I've pitched are turned down, and the list goes on and on. But that's okay, because it's not the end of anything. I try to learn, to adapt, to rethink and rewrite until finally I get it right and the final product is accepted by the team who understands the Tapas audience and market best. It takes time, patience, resilience, and constant effort.

So, if you're feeling down or unmotivated because of rejection, don't give up. Push forward, push yourself, improve and learn from your mistakes and weaknesses. Do better, be better, and work smarter not harder. And remember, even if you don't always end up where you want to be when you want to be there, it's good to look back and see how far you've already come. As long as you're always making progress, that's what counts! :slight_smile:

What are your tips for dealing with rejection, and what's a good way to view it?

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therosesword
Apr '21

There are billions of people in the world. Just because one person doesn't like something means pretty much next to nothing. There are plenty of books, movies, comics, music even colors and people that I reject. So why shouldn't someone feel the same way about what I create or who I am. There are other people who will like you. Shrug is off and move forward. It's an old cliche but my dad always said your eyes were in the front of your face for a reason.

CarltonIsaac
Apr '21

Old sayings are the wisest. :smiley:

cherrystark
Apr '21

I think it's important to remember the metaphorical "big picture" when it comes to dealing with rejection, similar to what y'all have said, and to not let rejection stop you from trying something new. I never would have known my work was remotely profitable had I not started posting my work online, and that was SUPER scary for me.

nathanKmcwilliamsIn the making of Bunneh The Rabbit
Apr '21

Rejection only has as much power over you as you're willing to give it. It hurts, but it's not the end. Same as failure, it's not a permanent outcome unless you allow it to be.

Get back up, dust off the dirt, fix what didn't work and try again. OR keep doing the same thing and find a different audience that will accept it.

therosesword
Apr '21

I always caution people about this. What doesn't work for one person is no problem for another. Case in point, my novel Dead Souls Doing the Samba. An editor read it, told me to loose the first 15 pages and get rid of the cat. The next person reading it optioned it for a screenplay. Another story I had (that's not on here) has someone saying the characters should move to Tuscany and run a BnB!!! She liked the characters but wanted them to do the things she'd like them to do.

If multiple people say the same thing take another look. And, if one person's suggestion really resonates with you, check it out again.

Good advice here in your last lines.

nathanKmcwilliamsIn the making of Bunneh The Rabbit
Apr '21

I think ultimately it rests on this:
Do you want your work to be popular and to be mainstream?
or
Do you want to have full creative control and oversight and make something you truly want.

Neither way is wrong, really. It's just...sometimes to make critical success and money, you'll have to sacrifice the things you want, and often times that means just following the trends.

But of course, then we have to examine what is success to you? Then you can explore what failure and rejection is for you. There are no right or wrong answers here, only a subjective path.

For me, success isn't making money. It's just actually making my comic the way I want. Rejection for me is people just not wanting to read it because it's not their thing. Which actually doesn't hurt me all that much.
I could see having manuscripts continually rejected by publishers being painful.
( But. For me that's not where success lies, so my rejection isn't quite as painful.)

therosesword
Apr '21

@nathanKmcwilliams

Everything you say is so true. I'm so tempted sometimes to ask people if they're writing by committee. I've had a rule ever since I can remember in my writing, if someone looks at my work and says, "this is what I would do" and I have not asked them what they would do, I don't listen. This is not their story. they are not the ones writing it. I am. On the other hand if they say, I don't understand xxxx then I'll step back and take a look to see how I was not clear. Sometimes its just the person but somethings it's not.

No matter what exists in this world someone loves it and someone else hates it (and there are those who are ambivalent). And even within the niches there are likes and dislikes, that includes mainstream. Look how many different subsets there are of romance, mystery, thriller, horror...

put tacos in front of me and if they're the only thing to eat, I'll eat them, put a spicey satay in front of me and I'm sharpening my chopsticks and tucking my bib.

Yeah, rejection isn't fun and it hurts more if you have respect for the person doing it, but most of the time it's coming from strangers who might have a name but you know nothing about them, their background and maybe not even what they look like. they could be a bot programmed to reject things that use the word "love."

I had a rejection once because I was too good and would make the other people look bad. go figure that one!!!

just keep marching forward.

ISNEKO
Apr '21

I kinda just let all my rejection fester into bitterness and arrogance. Keeps me from giving up. I'm like that crazy person with the scary project that thinks people just don't understand.

Iris-Grimoire
Apr '21
ISNEKO

That's still a toxic mentality towards rejection, and it can even lead to burnout or just not accepting new ideas because it creates such negative experience. Accept that it's happened, but you can't just move past it like it wasn't there. Take note of what went wrong, and what you can throw aside, and use that newfound knowledge(of fixing what was wrong or focusing more on what was liked, or trying a new audience) for a new attempt.

rajillustration
Apr '21

lately I've been seeing all my projects as journeys--so a rejection is sometimes considered an "end" to a journey--but in the case of a project...they don't really end. I'll continue to add to it as I do more passes, I'll continue nurture it--and it will change over time. My novel was a book I wrote intended to send to publishers, that became a comic because it didn't work for formal publishing, and is now back to a webnovel. Another comic I wrote I started as a book when I was a kid, then adapted into a longer novel as an adult, and then into a comic, and then into a completely different comic. Whether they do well or don't do well is up to so many factors, that I just kinda move on rather than analyze it. You don't REALLY know the reasons if something does well or not, you may know some--but you'll never know all of them, so let it go.

I will say that I've been trying to ask myself, as I've come up to roadblocks to ask, "what is this project trying to teach me." rather than "Why can't I succeed" because there's always room for improvement, and it's usaully something kind of personal that I needed the project to reveal to me. Like what looks like a silly failed comic to someone else, was for me a great opportunity to get better at time management and learn tools that I still use to this day. I'm also on my own artistic journey, and what may appear as one failed incident, is just a part of my own path towards making really good stuff in the future. You kind of have to fail to get better. Otherwise you'll never learn anything. So I gotta be patient with myself.

Kaydreamer
Apr '21

I've been feeling a little this way, as I've come to the realisation that I've missed the window at getting into 'Rising Stars' on WEBTOON. (I've been posting since Febuary, and the oldest comic in there now began in March.) That's pretty distressing, because the next real window for promo on WEBTOON is 'Recommended Series', which only ever seems to feature series with 1000+ subscribers. That's a LOT of subs I need to find on my own now, with no promotion incoming to springboard me there. It hurts.

BUT. I also know why that happened. I recognise the rookie mistakes I made with my earliest episodes. I've fixed some of those mistakes, like adapting my page-format episodes to a vertical scrolling format instead, but I know there's more yet to be done to bring them to the standard of the new comics which have received promotion through WEBTOON. (And the standard of my more recent episodes, for that matter.)

Also, while the road ahead of me will be much harder due to all of this, it's far from impossible. I can do my own promo, and grow little by little, until I reach a point where I may start to see WEBTOON promoting it occasionally. This is a stumbling block, but not the end of the road.

NinaWrites
Apr '21

I honestly don't take rejection very well. I suppose, part of it is because of my massive pride. For a moment, I think, why did they reject this? What is wrong with them?

Then I step back and think, let's take away my pride for a moment. I try to critically analyze what is lacking, but also acknowledge the strengths of my work.

I also know that just because one person doesn't like it doesn't mean the next person won't as well! I then just work on my rejected piece or I take it a apart and take some of my favorite pieces or idea from it and make a new work. Rejection doesn't mean it's the end - it's just a stepping stone to something unique and better.

But rejection still sucks at the end and it does take me a while to get to that point where I try to look at it from a positive perspective. In short, i need time to swallow the bitter pill of rejection.