Shhh... sneaking past my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

4 Ways to Manage RSD

If you feel profound unease when it comes to sending out your work, if rejection sends you into a doom spiral, and especially if you are Autistic or ADHD (or Audhd like me), you may have serious difficulty regulating your response to rejection due to the structure of your brain.

I’ve been sending my work out (“submitting”) for decades, and it’s often the most painful, dreaded part of my job. The sending out is even harder than receiving actual rejection. But I’m not writing this to complain. I’m writing to give you 4 ways to manage the problem: tried and tested hacks that help, that I actually use daily.

1. REFRAME the PROBLEM: if it’s your intention to get your play produced or your poem published or your story anthologized or your film made… then it’s your job to send out your work. Not your dream or wish or fantasy. YOUR JOB. Therefore it is your JOB to amass rejection. Rejection is PROOF you are doing your JOB! This proof - every single rejection you receive - must be CELEBRATED as proof that you are actually doing your job. I don’t know any successful writers who don’t also have stacks of rejections.

2. IDENTIFY why you do whatever you do (why this project). ARTICULATE (preferably in writing) what it is you are trying to do. Make it ABOUT MORE THAN YOU. And BE INTENTIONAL about it. This means instead of saying, “I’m writing a book about a person dealing with a tough loss,” I will say, “I’m writing the book I needed when I was young and reeling from grief.” Or, “my novel will help grieving middle graders feel less alone.” Or, “it’s not just a story; it’s a new way to understand ourselves.” Once I can point to several reasons for the project to exist in the world (beyond my own personal desires), I can remain committed. Doubt may arise, but I am immune to its virulence.

3. UPGRADE your BRAGGING skills. You may not have any bragging skills. I didn’t, until I started to work on them. Yep - it’s a skill. I’m still really awful at it, but I am practicing! THIS BRILLIANT POST by

   Alice Stanley
   on
   Ali Griffin Vingiano
   ’s substack is a tutorial if you are ready to polish your skills. You may have been raised to be modest, but that doesn’t mean you have to die that way. (Yes, it’s cringy and painful at first, but this is your JOB. AND, you are doing something of significant value for others, if you identified your why properly. See #2 above. So work on your skills, so you can do a better JOB!)

4. LEVERAGE HOPE. Every win (no matter how small) provides me an opportunity to harness the energy and hope I need to send out new work. As I was named a semifinalist last week for an opportunity I cannot yet mention, I leveraged this good news into the sudden ability to submit a few things to places I often feel are out of reach. Several times in my life I have had work accepted at places/levels where I thought, was I high to submit to them? YES I WAS! I was high on validation or the encouragement of a good rejection (yes, there is such a thing). You might think, isn’t it vanity to reach for the furthest possibility? According to Stella Adler (and Marianne Williamson), it’s only vanity if we don’t try. It’s vanity to hide your light, your hard-won truths, your wisdom, your work and your capacities from the world.

So update your resume. Start stating the actual positive truths about yourself, your abilities and your work. Make a list! Say at least one thing from that list out loud every day. Remind us all of the value you bring.

all artwork by Scott Sherman @scottshermanstudio on instagram

Writing Prompt:

Do you want to encourage engagement, awareness and agency in your readers or audience? We can learn from the enormity of the problems in the ancient Greek plays. We can put that strength of character, those high stakes, the beauty and possibilities of language into our plays and stories now.

Dare to engage with the toughest problems of our world.

Start with an important line in whatever you're writing and expand it into a lyrical passage. Show how a decision comes to fruition. Shakespeare often allows us to see a character make a decision via soliloquy. We can use interrogation for any line or concept/idea that could be further developed to show a character’s thought process. This reveals their character. Are they a peach (soft, sweet material with a hard rough center) or an onion (layers and layers leading nowhere), or what are they?

Go deep.

Direct address can get an audience's attention in a new way. If you are writing a story, you can address the reader. But there must be a reason to speak, a way to speak with specific language, and an emotional journey that leads from one feeling to another usually inspiring the character to come out of one state and into another state of being leading to an event. So something happens.

Events are what forces the action forward, changes the playing field or raises the stakes. In dialogue an event is a revelation, a recognition, a decision, a proposal, a promise/vow or threat.

Events creates problems for the protagonist who then must react or respond. What are the options (to be or not to be) and what will they do? This leads to another event, a decision to take action. And so on. Et cetera…

Announcements:

I’ll be teaching “Structure is Not a Dirty Word” my course on structure in playwriting at the Dramatists Guild Institute via Zoom this spring starting March 12th for 10 consecutive Tuesdays 6-9pm ET. More info HERE

I’m offering more Brave Group Coaching as a 6-week introductory course via Zoom starting Saturday, April 6th for 6 consecutive Saturdays 4-530pm ET. More info HERE

Brave Space Schedule:

Join me in Brave Space for $5 - 20/session. You get pages of prompts that meet you wherever you are on your project or help you start a new one; an embodiment practice; an hour of writing w/chat support; a discussion about the creative process; and an exit email to prove the magic of Brave Space really happened.

For the week of 2/26 - 3/1/24:
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Friday at 12pm ET Brave Sharing Salon 

For the week of 3/4 - 3/8/24:
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Friday at 12pm ET

For the week of 3/11 - 3/15/24:
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Friday at 12pm ET

Let me know how you are managing to deal with rejection. What helps you send out your work?

Onward,

Emma