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Don’t Feed the Bear! (An #OvercomeRejection Post)

Today begins a new series here at the blog, #OvercomeRejection. One post a week will be written by a writer who has overcome rejection in some form or another.

Today’s post is by Sarah Gingrich. Please leave a comment or ask her a question if you’d like, and feel free to email guest posts to me if you’d like to share your rejection with the world (aka my small blog readership).

It began in journals, scribbled out on car trips in rainy Chile with raucous children piping up in the background.  It dragged out, this story, my first fledgling fiction work.  It took three years of fits and starts, feasting and fasting, and then it was done.  I printed it out and held it in my hands, “Snow Dance”.  A story about faith, a story of heaven and terminal illness, a story of an unlikely friendship between an elderly mailman and a dying girl.  It was a way of expressing my deep longing for Heaven’s embrace, for the more at the end of all this.

I let a few read it, even though it felt like I was handing over a nude self-portrait.  As soon as it was back in my hands, I thrust it into a drawer, glad the whole thing was over with.  You see, I have a terrible lack of ambition, okay, I have none.  I enjoy writing, so I write.  I am satisfied; there is nothing more I need.  And perhaps, I fear that if I were actually published, my own voracious ego would squeeze the life out of my creativity.  It is a beast easily provoked.  Maybe that’s why I wave my hands wildly and my face takes on a pinched expression when someone compliments me.  I want to bat away the tempting morsel that the ego would swallow with relish.  Don’t feed the bear!  He’ll get used to it and become a nuisance!

Friends pestered, family pushed:  Submit your book!  Publish!  Publish!  Maybe I was squandering a gift, maybe I was even disobeying God.  That gave me pause.  So I submitted my work to a local publishing house, formatted just right, and then, I waited.  All the websites said to wait a year before contacting them to ask their thoughts.  I waited.  I waited.  No response.

There now, everyone would have to be satisfied; I tried, right?  I could say, “Yeah, I tried publishing, didn’t work out,” and people would leave me alone about it.  I could write freely.  Curiosity did prompt me, however, to check-in with the publisher after a year and a half had gone by.  I received this email back:

“I am filling in for an assistant editor who is away on vacation. While I don’t know the fate of your specific manuscript I can tell you that Good Books has stopped accepting children’s book manuscripts. Thank you for considering Good Books. We wish you the best as you continue writing.”

They hadn’t read it.  Did that make the rejection better or worse?

I never tried publishing again and can still summon no motivation to.  I know, I know, I barely tried!  But…I’m writing now more than ever, and, am quite, quite happy.

Sarah Gingrich lives with her husband and four children in Mountville, PA.  A former long-term missionary, she  now plants vegetables, sews patches on jeans, mothers her brood, keeps bees, and studies theology (not in that particular order).

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Calling All Rejects

Writers know rejection.

Every single day we are putting things out into the world, molding and crafting creations, only to have them rejected or (worse?) ignored. If writers’ books and articles and blog posts are like children, then we are the parents pushing the stroller through a group of strangers who walk up, look inside, shrug their shoulders, and then say, “Meh.”

I saw this rejection letter on a friend’s Facebook page recently:

Dear Mr. Hewson,

Thanks for submitting your tape of ‘U2’ to RSO. We have listened with careful consideration but feel it is not for us at present. We wish you luck with your future career.

Yours Sincerely

Alexander Sinclair

For those of you who didn’t know, Bono’s real name is Paul David Hewson.

Rejection.

I actually love rejection stories, because there’s something about rejection that propels us forward. The letters pile up (“Thanks, but no thanks”) and the negative comments pour in, yet what does the writer do?

(After sobbing or pacing angrily or downing a quart of ice cream while mumbling some of the more despicable Psalms as curses against those who did not recognize her genious.)

The writer returns to the page.

I want to collect guest posts from all of you writers out there. I want to hear of your recent rejection (or perhaps one from long ago that still sticks like a burr in your saddle). I want to hear about what you did next.

So go ahead, submitt your guest posts to me for consideration at shawnsmucker(at)yahoo(dot)com.  Your story of rising above rejection might be the one thing another writer needs to read.

***After thinking about this a bit more, I think it would be good to have stories of various kinds of rejection we’ve experienced and pushed through (not just writing related), so keep that in mind. All rejects are welcome.

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The Weight of a Life in a Reusable Grocery Bag

I followed the middle-aged couple out of the coffee shop and across the parking lot. The sun was bright, one of the first warm days of spring. We stopped behind their car, and the mom opened the trunk. She reached in and pulled out a large, reusable grocery bag. The handles stretched tight against the weight of the contents.

“Here they are,” she said.

“I really hate taking these from you,” I said. “I try to never take original photographs or journals from people.”

“You need to read these,” she said. “You need to see inside of her.”

I paused. The bag was heavy.

“I don’t accept these lightly. I will take very good care of them,” I said.

“I know you will,” she said.

* * * * *

There are many things that I love about what I do for a living. I love the life style it affords me and my family. I enjoy working at home, in close proximity to my wife and kids. I am fascinated by the people I get to meet.

But most of all, it’s the stories. It’s the lives that capture me, capture my imagination. Right now, I’m writing the story of a 95-year-old woman who was hugely successful in property. Her husband died in 1958, and she, a single woman, made her way in the business world through the 60s and 70s. She took up golf at 71. She once told me, “I didn’t stop driving at 93 because I thought I was incapable – it was all those other nuts on the road.”

Last year I had the honor of sitting with a dying man in Istanbul, Turkey and writing his life story. Then a 93-yar-old business man. The story of a father whose son confessed to him that he had committed murder. Project after project, story after story, all amazing.

But I have never journeyed into a story like the one for this couple, the one where I walked away from the back of their car with the weight of an entire life in my hands. Inside the bag were over 20 journals written by a young woman named Dawn. The journals detailed her battle with depression. They talk about “the Beast” and “the Imp” and many other forces she tried to overcome, day after day. Eventually, the battle became too much, and Dawn committed suicide.

Some people see those who commit suicide and think, “What a weak choice” or “What a selfish action.” But if you read Dawn’s journals, you quickly realize there are few people stronger than her. Every day that she chose to continue living was a huge victory.

I hope that entering into Dawn’s life this fall will help me, will help all of us, better understand the mindset of those who decide to end their own lives. I hope this story will give us a peek into the heart of someone struggling with a mental illness. I think that this death can lead to some kind of resurrection, some kind of redemption.

* * * * *

The journals sit in that bag in the corner of my room. I’m not ready to go into them just yet. But soon. Soon.

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For When Your Book is Ranked #134,216 on Amazon

I don’t read reviews of the books I’ve written anymore. Well, that’s not entirely true. I do sometimes click over to the page to see if there have been any new reviews, and if they’re good, then my day is fine and I’m a wonderful writer and surely my next book will be a New York Times Bestseller. I bashfully wave at the person who left the review and mouth, “Who, me?” These are the inflating moments, the ego-stroking seconds, when the validation I seek feels found.

And sometimes there is a review that doesn’t quite carry the requisite number of stars, and I find myself muttering arguments under my breath as to how wrong that person is, what a poor reader, how they probably don’t floss, or how they probably pee in the shower. People this stupid – in other words, people who don’t think I’m the next John Steinbeck – shouldn’t be allowed to use the Internet.

Also, every once in a while (or two to three times a day), I’ll check my recent book’s ranking on Amazon. The other day it was 134,216. That means 134,215 books sold more copies than I did, or something along those lines. You can argue with reviews. But you can’t argue with numbers.

This is not encouraging.

* * * * *

This post is for when we feel like we will never be extraordinary at anything.

This post is for when we feel like everyone around us is excelling, and we are existing.

This post is for when we feel overlooked, or under-appreciated.

* * * * *

Every once in a while I get an email from someone who has read one of my books and wants to say ‘hello,’ or ‘thank you,’ or ‘me, too.’ While Amazon reviews give a flash of high or low (sugar coursing through arteries), these kinds of letters are food for my soul.

Last week, when I was feeling especially stupid for taking some time off from promoting myself and my work, when I was wondering if all of these words ever amount to anything, I received the following email:

I just wanted to write and say thank you for Refuse to Drown.  I read “Happiness, A Timeline” on A Deeper Story, I sent it to my husband and said I had to buy that book.  I received it a week later, and read half of it, then put it down.  It was just so hard.  And I know my situation is so different – my son came out in the fall as being transgender, and it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve had to face.  Very few of our friends and family know.

Then two weeks ago, I felt God (I guess anyway – I tend to question if I really hear Him anymore) nudging me to pick up the book again.  I got to the part where Tim talked about how supportive the community was, and how his children were cared for, and I just thought – OK, my kid hasn’t killed anyone, so perhaps I’m not giving my friends enough credit by hiding the truth about my son from them.

The very next day, after I finished the book, my daughter asked when I was going to tell her best friend’s mother, because she wanted to know how much longer they would be allowed to be friends. My heart broke.  I spoke with her friend’s mom last week, and was so relieved to be greeted with love and acceptance.

So anyway, somehow, that book has given me some sort of strength in facing these days ahead.  And I guess I’m also gaining strength by telling people I don’t know first.  I hope you don’t mind.

Your stories on Deeper Story have really spoken to me, too.  I rarely comment, but I think it was the most recent one about a Cruel Thing for God to Do – I just wept.  And I was reminded of when Eustace had to have Aslan tear off his skin because he for all his trying, he couldn’t do it on his own.  I often feel like a bloodied mess these days, and reminding myself that perhaps it’s really that I’m a new creature helps.

Thanks for writing. It matters.

I wept while I read this, thinking of the tough road ahead for this woman and her child. I smiled while I read this, honored to be such a small part in someone’s transformation.

* * * * *

You are valuable. You are crucial to someone. The things you do are not unnoticed. The work you do is not insignificant. The things you do are like heavy rocks dropped into the center of a pond, and the ripples are moving out into every part.
Don’t measure your success as the world does, with the little numbers and dollar signs and titles. There are better measurements: smiles and tears and transformation.

You might be #134,216 to some. But to others, at this particular time, you are the only one.

 

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How to Find Peace in a Noisy World

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As I pull back from various aspects of my life where I used to shout, “Look at me! Look at me!”, those areas are filled with a kind of silence, a silence that very gently transforms into the voice of God whispering, “Here I am.”

There is initially a sense of loss when we choose obscurity over self-promotion, a sense of regret coupled with anxiety as we watch others build their kingdoms larger than ours. The ego is clamoring for its own survival. The ego is worried that it will be annihilated. It becomes a small animal, scratching and clawing for attention, for life, for recognition. But the more we diminish and the longer we allow ourselves to travel down this peaceful path into obscurity, the calmer the ego becomes.

Fame and recognition are like drugs, and when we deny ourselves these temporary ecstacies, the ego experiences the pain of withdrawal. But then, after the tremors and the emotional vomiting, the begging and the anxiety, comes something unexpected.

Peace.

It’s a wonderful freedom, those first few days after your self has come to peaceful terms with the idea that fame is not the goal. The world around you seems more calm and less frenetic. The critical voices in your mind recede because the things they are criticizing about you (your lack of popularity, your lack of wealth, your lack of accomplishments) no longer bear such weight. Those “crucial” beams you once thought were load-bearing turned out to be inconsequential, and in their absence, space opens up.

I found that, for myself, diminishing has allowed me to focus on the voice reminding me that “You are God’s beloved.” When I spend less time worried about what I am accomplishing, accomplishments become less important, and I can see with clarity, perhaps for the first time, that (as Henri Nouwen says), my identity is not found in what I do, what people say about me, or what I own.

My identity is this: I am God’s beloved.

What would it look like for you to diminish? What are some things you would need to relinquish? What are some areas where you would need to let go? How does the idea of traveling into obscurity make you feel?

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Why We Feel Worthless

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“‘He must become greater; I must become less.’” (John 3:30)

“…unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed….” (John 12:24)

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

My daughter is my little adventurer. She is the one who wants to learn to ride the four-wheeler first. She is the one who wants to climb the tree, to creep to the top of the mountain, to let her legs dangle and swing her way across the monkey bars.

Recently we were at a climbing gym and, with her long legs, she scaled the side of the boulder. But she couldn’t quite get to the top. She couldn’t quite bring herself to reach up into the unseen and find a grip, pull herself up.

She came back down and the disappointment hovered around her eyes.

“Next time, Kid,” I said, wrapping her in a hug.

* * * * *

Ever since I decided to give up social media and spend some time “diminishing,” I have questioned the decision. Why? What am I trying to get out of this? What’s the point?

I’m not an ascetic for ascetic’s sake. I don’t want this to become a practice of denying myself simply for the sake of denial – I find that, at least in myself, that sort of thing tends to lead less to awareness and contemplation than it does to a subtle pride. Look at me. Look at how spiritual I can be.

That’s not what I’m after.

So why? Why step out of the small limelight I had created? Why stop promoting my writing? Why take a path that would lead, if followed to its logical end, to complete obscurity?

These are the questions I keep asking myself.

* * * * *

I’ve been listening to an Henri Nouwen sermon I found online, one in which he speaks about how each of us is the Beloved (the first part of the sermon is at the bottom of this post). In the sermon he talks about how we try to answer the question, “Who am I?” by analyzing different things in our lives: What do I do? What do people say about me? What do I own?

And as I accomplish wonderful things, as people say nice things about me, and as I purchase things that make me happy, I feel good. I feel like a productive individual. I feel like I am worth something.

But then I fail at something. People say bad things about me. My finances drop and I do not own the things that make me feel good. Suddenly I feel worthless.

This is a never-ending cycle, Nouwen explains, a treadmill from which we must escape because there is no end to it, no end to the striving and the deep-sea crashes. But how? How do we stop defining ourselves by what we do, what people say about us, or what we own?

There is only one way, and that is to understand that I am God’s Beloved. No matter what I do, no matter who I influence, no matter what I have, that remains true.

Do I believe it?

* * * * *

My daughter climbed up to the top of the climbing boulder and sat there. She had finally made it to the top. I could see her head just above the ridge, and she was smiling.

I don’t love her because she made it to the top of the boulder. I don’t love her because the adult next to me looked at me and smiled, thinking good thoughts about her. I don’t love her because of any earthly thing she owns.

I love her, I adore her, because of who she is. She is my daughter, created in my image, and there is nothing she could do to lose that love.

Could I love better than God loves? Could I somehow be more kind or caring towards my daughter than God is towards me? Could I love my daughter with no strings attached while God can only love based on merit or behavior?

No. The simple answer to that is a resounding no.

And this is the lesson I am learning while I let myself diminish, while I watch my blog numbers plummet due to lack of promotion, while I miss out on connecting with agents or publishers because I’m not on Twitter or Facebook. Layers of me are being stripped away, and I am left with the simple knowledge that I am the Beloved, and that is enough.