Rejection

Is rejection the same as failure / Also, come see Uncle Steve!

This post was prompted by a podcast, “Dead Eyes” by actor Connor Ratliff. You might know Ratliff from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Honestly, listening to the podcast I first mistook him for Michael Cyril Creighton, a cast member of Only Murders in the Building and I because conceived of this post thinking I could loop in OMITB (we’re deep in season four by the time you read this).

If you haven’t already heard of the podcast, Dead Eyes is about something that happened to Ratliff early in his acting career, when he’d been cast for a minor role in Band of Brothers, only to be fired by Tom Hanks because he thought Ratliff had “dead eyes”. The incident sent Ratliff on a tail spin for a while, had him questioning whether acting was the right profession for him, and eventually was the basis of this podcast, where he talks to other actors while trying to get to the bottom of his feelings.

The podcast is about what everyone in a creative profession goes through: rejection. Failure. And it’s not just once: for most of us, it’s the possibility of failure every time you step up to the plate. To a lesser extent, it happens every time you open Twitter and see someone else got an opportunity that you didn’t; when your name isn’t mentioned in the same breath as the writers you consider a peer; and so on and so on. It can be really brutal—and this from someone who considers herself fairly bombproof. (After all, I ran war rooms for the Defense Department once upon a time.)

Ratliff says there are only two ways to react to a situation like this: you either let it defeat you, or you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again/reinvent yourself. He didn’t mean it as a challenge, meaning that the second choice is not always the correct one. Sometimes you may honestly come to the conclusion that it’s time to pack it in. (He became a bookseller for twelve years. A noble profession.)

One of the things I found fascinating about the podcast is how everyone in Hollywood suffers rejection so much more than the average person. I don’t mean that sarcastically. Take Jon Hamm, who appears on the podcast, for example: it’s hard to imagine him ever being turned down for a part. And yet he was, of course. Over and over.

It’s hard not to take personally, and yet that’s the key to rejection. As Ratliff points out, that’s the saving grace about Hollywood: you rarely know why you weren’t selected for a part. Your rejection could’ve been for a myriad of reasons, all beyond your control. Hamm himself told a story of one actor auditioning for Mad Men who’d done a fantastic job but they couldn’t hire him because he just didn’t look the part. You might too tall, too short, too young, too old. It’s not something you should beat yourself up over.

It’s much the same for writing. Every rejection feels like a judgment on your writing ability, but often it has more to do with something else entirely. Your story may have been turned down by a magazine or anthology because the editors had just run a very similar story (this happens more than you might think). Agents may be passing because your novel is a little too similar to one they just placed. Or they may like your style but think the story idea is unsellable at this current moment in time.

When I find myself on the outside looking in, I try to remind myself that it’s a big pond out there. There are LOTS of writers, lots of tremendously good books. You can’t all be invited to speak at the book festival or be nominated for an award.

When it comes to writing, I definitely see rejection as an opportunity to improve the work. Particularly when you’re just starting out as a writer, I think we have the tendency to dig in our heels. If we’re honest, that probably comes out of fear. This is how I envision my story: don’t make me change it. We know this one path to make magic, don’t make me stray off that path. But it’s that push to leave our comfort zone that makes us stronger, whether it’s writing or rock climbing or anything, really. You develop new muscles. You can put your strengths (and weaknesses) into perspective.

I haven’t published a horror novel since 2022 and the next one doesn’t come out until fall 2025. The past two years have been spent with spy fiction (Red London and The Spy Who Vanished). I’ve noticed my name isn’t coming up in horror circles: fewer inclusions in bookstagrammers’ round-ups, I’m missing from festivals, not invited to participate on panel discussions. I have a lot of faith in Fiend, the next book, to get me back on the map but there’s a chance that it might not happen, and that’s unnerving. In some ways, I feel like I’m already a ghost. Maybe I’m gone and I’m the only one who doesn’t know it. (Honestly, for a horror writer, that’s not as scary as it sounds.)

That took a dark turn. The lesson here is not to fear rejection. It’s not always a sign of failure. Sometimes it’s a sign that you need to rethink what you’re doing. To question yourself and think about new directions you might take.

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Hey, if you’re of a certain political persuasion you may want to join me on October 15 for a very special live stream, SCARE UP THE VOTE. A bunch of folks from the horror community, literature but also film, will be doing a virtual fundraising for Harris & Walz. Stephen King! Joe Hill! Mike Flanagan! Bryan Fuller! Paul Tremblay! Stephen Graham Jones and Victor LaValle! Tananarive Due—and many more. Please please come… imagine what Uncle Steve is going to say. Click the link to register.