✨Dismantling the "Feedback Sandwich;" the Value of "Failing Upwards;" and Why You Need to Know Writing is "NOT a Prison Sentence"

Authors Terri-Lynne Defino, Saumya Dave and Abbi Waxman share more wisdom than we can squeeze into a headline in this week's issue for paid subscribers!

Happy Tuesday, writing friends!

Let’s talk about rejection. We’ve almost certainly all been there and…Oof, amirite? 😖 Whether it’s in the form of a form rejection (“Thank you for…unfortunately…”) or a more detailed critique (“These are all the things that aren’t working…”), it’s not something anyone wants to hear.

But guess what? Rejection is, alas, exactly what we’ve signed up for. And a common (and important!) theme in this week’s issue exclusively for our paid subscribers is that the writers who succeed are the ones who not only realize this, but figure out how to keep going, anyway. And not just despite the critical feedback, but because of it.

The absolute necessity of critical (one might even go so far as to say “harsh”) feedback is the topic of this week’s author essay, the hilarious and brutally insightful “The Shit Your Ego Won't Tell You About Writing” by Terri-Lynne Defino (Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B?). Terri-Lynne tackles—and effectively dismantles—the commonly used “feedback sandwich” approach to providing critique (which you’re almost certianly familiar with, but just in case: this refers to sandwiching the harder to swallow “constructive” feedback between two slices of healthy, wholesome praise). But is an approach that was popularized as a way to motivate women to sell enough cosmetics to earn themselves a pink Cadillac (No, really. Look it up), really the best way for you to learn as a writer? Terri-Lynne—who shares the pivotal, writing career-defining moment when an agent gave her “the ass-kicking [she] didn’t know [she] needed” and she stopped believing her well-meaning friends who told her she was brilliant—would argue that the answer to that question is a resounding “Hell, no!”

Continuing the theme in this week’s author video, Saumya Dave (The Guilt Pill) explains how important rejections were to setting her on the path to writing success. Tune in to learn from (and be encouraged by!) Saumya’s publishing journey (which included more thn 200 rejections before getting her first positive response to a query!). After watching it, we think you’ll agree that the writers who succeed are the ones who, like Saumya, “fail upwards,” breaking down those rejections to learn from them, rather than letting themselves be broken. Saumya made her rejections work for her—and you can, too!

Finally, if rejection has you bummed out, this week’s Q&A with Abbi Waxman (One Death at a Time) should help get you back on track. Or, at least, put things into perspective. In case you were thinking you’ll be able to stop worrying about rejection and failure once you finally reach the book deal finish line, think again. Abbi’s assertion that, despite previous publishing success, the fear you won’t be able to repeat it is “ever-present,” should squash that idea in a hurry (if you know how to mitigate that “feeling that you've lost your mojo” Abbi would “love to hear it”). Bottom line? You are not alone. Abbi also wisely reminds us that writing is a job, not a prison sentence, and sometimes the best thing you can do for you (and your characters) is take a break. We know that doesn’t always seem easy, what with so much writing advice seemingly intent on making you write every single day, rain or shine, hell or high water, so if you were by any chance in need of permission to hit pause, Abbi’s got you covered.

Be kind to yourselves, writing friends. You’re part of a very big club of people doing a very hard thing. And as long as you keep going (with breaks as needed, of course), you’re doing great.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! ❤️

❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team