The Boomerang Effect and Dealing With Rejection.

When I wanted to pursue a career as an actor or a dancer, I came to terms with the fact that I would face a lot of rejection.  I understood that on the day of an audition, there may just be someone who could lift their leg half an inch higher than mine, or someone who could speak four languages, whereas I could only speak one.  Or they could be the casting director’s niece, the casting director’s girlfriend, boyfriend, sister, dog-walker.  Either way, these are the small - but clear - distinctions between myself and the person who got the job that are easy to see and easy to comprehend.

With writing, I’m starting to see that it is not so clear-cut.  I am going to admit that I have sent my work off to a lot of writing competitions, festivals and events since I graduated University and, thankfully, have given my portfolio some weight in the process.  But inevitably, my application has something of a boomerang effect, flying back to hit me in the face with a neatly articulated rejection email.  And you know what, if I had turned my play into an interpretative dance which I performed in front of the judges that went splendidly until I knocked their coffee urn off the table, I would understand the rejection.  Without stepping too close to the “woe is me, the rejected writer” blog post, what that nicely worded email tells me, quite plainly, is that they don’t want to tell my story.

Now, obviously.  Having sought comfort in reading about howJ.K Rowling was rejected from umpteen publishers, as was F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D Salinger, D.H Lawrence, I know that this is not the time to throw the tea towel on the floor and smash all the dishes.  I have to keep writing, and keep trying.  “Do it for the love”, or something like that.  The stories that me and every other rejected writer want to tell, the issues we want people to discuss, are still important, whether they fit those theatres or publishers we apply to or not.  I think that’s the way I have to understand it, because making theatre is about a relationship between a theatre and a writer.  At the moment, that relationship is going too far in a lot of cases, and as Anthony Nielson said recently on this topic, "I see a lot of plays that get the life rewritten out of them."  Personally, I don’t want my words to be rehashed and redeveloped to fit the model of a theatre, I want to work with a company who want to achieve similar things as me, and for that, I guess I just have to wait.

So if, like me, you haven’t achieved your overnight escalation to stardom and henceforth consider a bottle of gin just to get you through the day, take a minute to properly evaluate the situation.  There is still time, there is always time.  Matt Morrison, my friend and University lecturer, told me to just “keep writing plays.  Even if some of them are shit, keep writing them.”  I love the idea of allowing yourself to be rubbish.  If you take that pressure off, I think the story is better, lighter, less intense.  And you’re probably less likely to weep into your tenth measure of Gordon’s Gin.  Which is a relief.  Because I don’t even like gin that much.