#55: Nailing Those Rejections

CARRIE ON REGARDLESS!

Stephen pounded a nail into his bedroom wall and pushed the rejection slip onto it. It was his first attempt to get a magazine article published and whilst lying on his bed listening to Fats Domino, he still felt pretty good about his chances.

“When you’re too young to shave, optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

By the time he was 14, the nail could no longer support the weight of the rejection letters impaled upon it, so Stephen replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.

Little by little, he started to improve, even getting the odd encouraging remark alongside the rejection. Things weren’t easy at home though. At 18, to help his cash-strapped mum out and pay for college, Stephen would do a full school day, then persevere through gruelling 8-hour shifts at a dingy textile mill, till midnight.

He made it to college and met his wife, Tabitha there. Two kids later, they were still doing it tough - living in a crappy apartment without a phone line. Steven had also become an English teacher - ‘Mr King’.

One night, he began writing about a shy teenage girl named ‘Carrie’ who was getting bullied and had subsequently developed strange powers. The idea had percolated in his mind for years, but he couldn’t get it down on paper. 

He read the 3-page draft back and it sucked. Stephen couldn’t identify with the all-girl cast and didn’t even care about Carrie. Cursing, he threw it in the trash.

The next day, he came home to find Tabitha reading the uncrumpled pages. ‘You’ve got something here,’ she said. “I really think you do.’ The novel didn’t come easy, and he never really warmed to Carrie as a character, but Stephen persevered and even managed to get a $2,500 advance, which helped pay for a working car and phone line.

A year or so later in 1973, Stephen took an unexpected call from his publisher. ‘Are you sitting down?’ Stephen asked if he should. ‘You might, the paperback rights to Carrie just went for four hundred thousand dollars.’

15 years after his first rejection, Stephen King no longer had to scrimp on phone bills or medicine for his kids. He quit his 6k a year teacher role and went onto become one of the most popular writers of all time. Source - Steven King on Writing - A Memoir of the Craft

WISDOM 💎

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

Stephen King

Tip 1 - A SMART PLAY ✅

Stephen King writes 6 pages every day without fail. Within 2-3 months he has a book. We might not be a writer, but consistent work in any pursuit eventually adds up to a lot.

Tip 2 - AVOID 🚩

Letting rejection destroy you. Stephen King has written 60 bestsellers. Film adaptations include The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, The Green Mile and Stand by Me. Rejection was omnipresent for 15 years and what’s more - most of it was probably justified, because at the time he wasn’t a great writer… yet.

Don’t stress, rejection and criticism are the norm. Just keep working and improving.

Tip 3 - ACTION 💪

Producing ideas is not the key factor. Recognising and capitalising on good ones that come along is the thing. The more ideas you explore, the better you get...