Is a little self-delusion a good thing? Is a lot of self-delusion a better thing?
I recently wrote something for The New Yorker, which is to say that I recently wrote something, sent it to The New Yorker, and received a rejection email. It has been so long since I’ve submitted something to a publication unsolicited that when I last did so it was through the primitive tools of envelope and stamp. Likewise in those days, when I received a rejection note it came in the form of a printed, highly flammable letter that you could satisfyingly turn to ashes and move on from. In modern times, you are left only to twitch a fingertip and send the defeat to the digital trash, wholly unfulfilled. Still, today’s rejection process is highly efficient, so that your hopes are dashed with a sense of urgency, if nothing else.
After The New Yorker, I sent my work to McSweeney’s, though it didn’t quite seem to fit the publication’s tone, so the rejection wasn’t as much of a surprise. The rejection note was, however, more personalized than TNY, indicating that it was “a fun read,” which I take to be akin to a romantic relationship ending with “You’re not hot enough (I have been working out!).” This was the second time I’ve been rejected by McSweeney’s, but it’s the first time I’ve ever sent anything to TNY.
Throughout my entire life, I’ve submitted unsolicited works to publications fewer than a dozen times. Internalizing failure and taking things far too personally is my stock-and-trade, so I’ve never been good with rejection, but after decades of practice and success at rejection in other areas of my life, I’ve decided to put myself back out there in the rejection writing game.
There are, of course, dozens of humor publications, but I’m at the point in my life where I just don’t have the time or energy to be rejected by lesser publications. I’m starting at the top, and I plan to stay there, just outside the perimeter of success, where I’ll beat at their doors until they filter me straight to junk mail or file a restraining order.
The value of self-delusion
Some people can be rejected over and over and over again and never realize that the reason they’re being chronically rejected is that they’re not any good at what they’re doing. Yet many of these people will eventually achieve some form of success. The lesson there is that if you do things badly and believe in yourself, there’s a decent chance you’ll succeed if you just keep going. Believing in yourself—sometimes against all evidence to the contrary—is the main thing.
It makes me wonder, is a little self-delusion a good thing? Is a lot of self-delusion a better thing?
Still, there are endless stories of perseverance paying off, of failure as a necessary stepping stone to success. I can’t recall the now-famous writer (you’ll have to take my word for it) who was rejected something like 1,000 times before beginning to be published. Back then, that meant 1,000 stamped envelopes. But rather than burning them, he saved them, confident that he would someday have the last laugh.
Jack London was supposedly rejected 600 times before being published. Minneapolis author Kate DiCamillo received 473 rejections before Because of Winn-Dixie was published; the book then won a Newbery Honor and became a Hollywood film. I’m not writing any books. I just want to get one piece of humor published in a publication I highly admire, frame it, feel good for a day or two (or maybe even three days with success like that), and then go back to self-loathing and feeling like I’m a complete failure.
And so I submit it to you here: A work rejected by two prestigious, if not legendary publications. A work of potentially suspect quality, in a tone somewhat adjacent to my usual writings, and which may or may not have had even an outside chance at publication, because the absolute best part about self-delusion is that you’ll never really know for sure.
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