How to Survive a Creative Life
Like every other writer on earth, I know what it feels like to experience rejection and disappointment. It comes with the territory—we all know that—but it's still gutting. And while we may understand that a rejection is not Definitive Evidence of Our Lack of Talent, it can still feel that way, even to writers who have an impressive publication history behind them.
Which is why this story is so inspiring.
Last week on social media, I was raving about the epistolary novels The Correspondent and 84 Charing Cross. They are fabulous reads: the former as a richly layered contemporary novel that is as tender and moving as it is witty and intelligent; the latter as a classic, published in 1970 and still hilarious and wonderful!
Both are written entirely in letters, so if you are a letter lover, these are MUST-READS. And if you are not a letter writer, these books may just make you fall in love with the art. Either way, I highly recommend them both, but particularly The Correspondent.
It is Virginia Evans's first novel. It's already become an international bestseller and prize-winner, a runaway hit, so Evans is living the writer's dream. But here is the important part: this is actually her 8th novel. The first SEVEN are unpublished.
Over the course of two decades, Evans received thousands of rejections and sent letters to every literary agency in the US and the UK before finally finding a Canadian agent who was willing to take her on. Even then, The Correspondent was rejected by dozens of publishers and took her agent months to sell.
“It just felt like rejection and ultimately failure was my thing," Evans said.
I honestly have no idea how she managed to keep writing past those seven failed attempts. But somehow she did.
In fact, she wrote The Correspondent in a closet, between 5-7am, the way she had been writing for the previous 19 years (though not always in a closet). She almost gave up numerous times. (Of course she did!) But only because she let the voice of her creative vision sing louder than the voices of rejection did she manage to arrive where she is now.
Alison Wearing is a bestselling, award-winning author, playwright, and performer. She is also a memoir writing coach and the creator/facilitator of Memoir Writing Ink, an online program that guides people through the process of transforming personal stories into memoir. Alison leads writing retreats internationally, and otherwise devotes herself to being a force of kindness, colour, and joy in this world.