Rejection. Horrible. Formidable. Career-ending, dream-killing rejection.

You can say it over and over. Stare it in the eyes. But, as a writer, there’s nothing that quite makes you feel so out-of-sorts as you do when you experience it.

It’s fair enough for the odd well-wisher who knows that you’re dabbling in the craft to say, hey, well done, don’t worry about it. Just get back on the ol’ horse and keep on riding.

Sounds like good advice, but it’s a bit hard to ride that proverbial horse and not worry about it when you feel like your heart has been sawed out with a spoon, thrown on the highway and run over by countless semis as you stand by, helpless, weeping.

No. Rejection, for a writer, can be a different thing entirely.

As writers, we wear our hearts on our sleeves. When people read our work, they are reading the very essence of us. Our choice of words, our story, our expression – it’s who we are. In one page, it’s as if we’ve captured a part of our soul and laid it out, naked, for all to see and, ultimately, judge whether good or bad or just plain boring. To illustrate, it’s analogous to arriving at a formal dinner party wearing nothing but a bowtie and being told by the guests what they think of our…wares.

Not very pretty.

So, naturally, a writer can be forgiven for being a little hesitant about even allowing a friend or family member to read his or her work let alone sending off a manuscript to a publisher.

To paint the picture for the uninitiated: Rejection for a writer usually comes about via mail, in the guise of a form letter, thanking the author for their submission and advising that ‘we are not publishing your genre at this time’. You know yourself that this is definitely not true because this very publisher specialises in the very genre in which you write. Often such letters will offer some critical suggestion as to the audience or prose but will always include a sentence or two that specify the publisher is not particularly interested in your work and request that you don’t resubmit it. The worst rejection can come from those close to us, like a friend or family member: er…yeah, that’s…not too bad.

Simple words they may be but the strike at the writer’s core like a poison-tipped dagger. They may as well poke us in the eye with an electric cattle prod.

Rejection comes in many variations, from the veiled to the plain blunt – basically, anything that amounts to a recoiling from, or even hint of discontent with our writing is rejection. Some writers will come to fear it with such a shudder that posting their manuscript runs a close second in preference only to severing off their left arm.

Our mothers have often tried to comfort us, saying, ‘don’t worry about it, love. The most important thing is that you think you’ve done a good job.’ She pats your head with a gentle hand as she speaks which serves to only compound the fact that you’ve just been shunned, that your aspirations for professional authordom have just been nailed to a wall and toasted with an oxy-torch. Who cares whether I think it’s good! I want them to think I’m good!

Mothers, they so know how to drive in the stakes of failure and really finish off the job, but lovingly and with such a caring touch.

Writers, I say, we need not heed this! This thing rejection is but fable. It, to quote an old (and overused, but useful) maxim, is all in the mind.

Confidence is key to the writer’s success. Indeed, it is doubly the key to overcoming rejection, too. Anyone that has ever read a bad book has also witnessed this fact in action. A bad or mediocre writer, confident enough in their ability to tell a story, will persist enough to overcome the fact that their writing could do with a little more…finesse.

In fact, your mother was right and her wise words would have been heeded if they hadn’t been painted to make us feel pathetic failures.

So let’s dissect this word, confidence. Its definition seems a clever place to start. The Macmillan dictionary defines it as: ‘The belief or self assurance in your own ability to succeed.’ You’ll note the definition ignores anything about being accepted by others or, even, another’s opinion. Confidence, then, considers only one’s own opinion of one’s self.

Rejection and confidence, then, are matters of viewpoint. Personally, as a writer, I have received countless letters expressing the fact that I hadn’t made the cut, that the publisher wasn’t interested in my work. Fortunately, I considered them only as encouragement to continue working, perfecting my craft, thinking that eventually something would come along.

And, it did.

Even if it doesn’t, it is not the end of your writing career. Whether you are a great writer is, factually, totally irrespective of whether or not you are published and even whether or not people like your work. If you’re writing from this perspective, being so worried about ‘what others will think’ then you are not really concentrating on your work.

Before you send your manuscript off to anyone, read over what you’ve written from your own perspective. Are you happy with it? Do you like it? If it had been written by someone else, would you read it? Do you like the writing style, the choice of words? Do you think it makes sense? Before you do anything else, let anyone else read it, be confident that you have answered the above questions with a firm YES.

If not, make your adjustments until you are satisfied – and by this I mean, completely, utterly convinced – that you think that what you’ve written is decent.

Give it to someone else. Let them read it, but now with your own solid, unwavering confidence in your own work. They may say it’s this or that, they may proffer some wise words regarding your plot or, even, say that it’s just not their cup of tea. With your newfound confidence, these words you will take on board for what they are: A person’s opinion and nothing more. You may make changes to your piece based on their critique, but, fortunately for you, you will not be taking a bath with your hairdryer.

This is something that may take some getting used to: The fact that a person’s opinion is only an opinion and not a life-crushing moment in one’s life. It may take practice to be bold enough to listen to others’ thoughts on your writing and not get emotional or depressed. It’s only natural, you will need to persist. The more people that read your work, the more people will pass on their judgement to you of what you’ve written. This is just what people like to do – they like to tell you what they think. All you need to do is say, Okay, thank you, and that’s all.

You, yourself, know if your writing is good. A writer is usually their own most scathing critic so, if you’re pleased with your own writing you’ve already won over the toughest reader.

Spend your time reflecting on your own good work and being proud of what you’ve written. Through experience, your skin will grow thick and you’ll soon not care what anyone says about your work, whether they reject it as the worst text of the modern age or the greatest writing since Huxley.

Anthony Santoro is the author of the Mike Felice series of detective novels and is principal contributor to the Writers' Resource Centre. Read more about Anthony Santoro on the Writers' World About Us page