When Your Persistence Disappears

Ending a creative year by taking heart from famous writers' rejections--a few good ones to bolster your courage as we wrap up 2024 and face 2025

Second in a series of four weekly posts, specially crafted for this time of year and time of the world, when chaos is at its height, on how to regain your interior momentum and inspiration as a creative person.

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected this week for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review. Of these, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many authors) the Michelin Guide for industry book reviews. A Kirkus starred review is like a Michelin one-star restaurant award, some say. A Best of is three stars! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Vera Davidova on Unsplash

This week, I had some very good news. My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected for Kirkus Reviews’ 2024 Best Indie Book list. Only 100 books out of many thousands make that list, and I don’t know why this novel, out of all the books I’ve published, was graced to get this award. I can’t really figure out the publishing industry, at any time, but Kirkus is a big deal, and I’m very grateful this novel got some notice.

However! It doesn’t really touch the next project, in terms of whether I’m able to sit down and work. Keep my courage going, my belief that I can create another book that readers will love. And reviewers too. Each time, it’s a completely new game.

Courage to create ebbs and flows, for me. How about you? Sometimes it’s completely smothered by events around me or chaos within. I wanted to tell you about this holiday gift (thank you, Kirkus) but also give you a little boost to get through these next weeks. How will you (and me too) not neglect ourselves creatively?

So I thought I’d pass along my ongoing collection of famous writer rejections.

It’s a list I’ve been gathering for years. These are my favorites.

Here are writers who persisted. Who had busy lives. Who faced odds—some really big odds—and their worlds were chaos, often, like ours is. Whose courage ebbed and flowed. Who may have gotten an award for one book but wondered, as I am wondering now, if there’s juice to create another one.

Bottom line? They kept at their craft, despite these challenges, internal and external. They kept writing. They kept submitting their work.

They kept trying to say what they had to say, on the page, in the story.

What keeps a writer from trying?

I guess it comes down to a certain will to push forward, but even more, a belief in our right to write. A belief in our stories.

So here are ones who held that belief, who persisted. They are listed below, along with their happy endings. (My research came from many sites online, and particularly two, which I thank below.)

And if you really want to feel great about your own persistence, check out this post from Lit Hub on rejection letters that famous authors have received. And a great conversation on Reddit with even more authors’ rejection stories.

Enjoy whatever boost you get from this! The point? To give us courage to keep going in the new year, of course.

• Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Di Camillo--397 rejections (and it became a movie)

• Jessmyn Ward received countless rejections and won two National Book Awards

• Alex Haley got 200 rejections before Roots was finally printed

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle--97 rejections (and it won the Newbery Medal for best children's book of 1963; last I read, it was in its 69th printing)

• Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson--40 rejections (and it has won multiple awards and sold 150,000 hard copies)

• Judy Blume says she received "nothing but rejections" for 2 years

• Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot--17 rejections

• Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling--rejected by 9 publishers

• The Diary of Anne Frank--16 rejections (and now more than 30 million copies are in print)

• Dr. Seuss books--more than 15 rejections

• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach--140 rejections

• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell--38 rejections

• Watership Down by Richard Adams--26 rejections

• Dune by Frank Herbert--nearly 20 rejections

Read more at Globe Soup and another great post from Lit Hub. Do you know of others? Share them here, to give us all a little uplift this week!

Special thanks to these authors for helping me add to my list: Debbie Ohi and Richard Pettinger.

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Your Weekly Writing Exercise

This week, my exercise suggestion is in two parts.

1. Take a walk. Get away by yourself for a short time, however long you can, and think about your creative life. Take your phone or a notepad and pen, take photos of what inspires you visually or record some images and ideas you get.

2. Google one of these authors listed above and read about their creative lives. It’s a huge reality check, to learn the struggles that other writers go through, especially ones that seem to have it all. What did you learn?

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Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Megan Lindhal Goodrich, Beyond Terminal: Processing Childhood Trauma to Reclaim Self (Wise Ink), September release

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December release

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I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.