What Acting Taught Me About Rejection

I’ve been querying my first novel for a little while now. So far, the response has been good: three requests for manuscripts out of about fifteen queries. Out of those three requests, so far, I’ve got two rejections. One of them just came in today. 

Of course, I had the obligatory freak-out this morning when I saw the email in my inbox from the agency that requested my manuscript. 

“Nope!” I declared over email to Genn and Angel. “Nope, I won’t look at it. Won’t peek! Not til later, with wine in hand and boyfriend massaging my shoulders.”

And then I got over it, and read it. Yep, it was a rejection. The agent did kindly give some feedback, which I massively appreciated. But, of course, I wanted her to love my book. I wanted excitement, thrills, compliments. I wanted a yes. That’s not what I got. Most of the time in life, that’s not what I get.

Rejection and I are on really, really comfortable terms. I’m an actress as well as a writer. Which means there are two whole realms where I have opportunities for rejection on a massive scale. 

When you get rejected as an actor, it’s not about some artistic work that's outside of yourself. It’s about you as a person—how you look, how you behave, how you walk into a room. Acting—especially for things like commercials—is less about playing a constructed character and more about being the most distilled version of yourself that you can be. And you’d better hope the casting people like that version. Especially in the commercial arena, if you’re decent enough at the sheer craft, they reject you because you’re just not enough of the type that they’re looking for. Your “you” is just not what they want.

Which sometimes leads me to wonder whether I'm actually believable as a human being.

This week I did two auditions. I probably won’t get cast in either of them. I’ve had what I felt were fantastic auditions and not gotten so much as a callback. I’ve poured my heart out in rooms where the auditioners were eating lunch and gazing at their iPhones. I’ve been met with a curt “thanks” and no eye contact. I’ve gotten passed over for commercials, voiceovers, plays, indie films…pretty much every kind of acting project there is, I have gotten not cast in it.

But I’ve also gotten cast--kind of a lot, especially in the past year. There’s a “yes” hidden in every big pile of “no’s” I come up against. Which is why it’s so important to just move on. To do an audition, and then immediately start thinking about the next one. 

I like to be a shark. Sharks have to keep swimming, or they can’t breathe and they die. I keep swimming.

Yup...that's me.

I've been handling deeply personal rejection on a more-or-less weekly basis since getting into acting--and if I can cope with that, I can cope with rejection in this area, too. That’s not to say it doesn't hurt, though. I think what's going to get to me the most is the brief flash of hope--you know, the one that goes "OMG MY LIFE COULD CHANGE!!!" just before opening an email. Because a letdown from that hope can be a painful thing, even if it's just momentary. 

But still. When I opened the email, I was ready for a devastating emotional response. Instead, what I felt was this:

Oh. Look at that. Someone's taking a pass on my work. Biiiiig surprise. NEXT.

And then I sent out five more query letters. Because that's what sharks do.

2013: the year that almost broke me

2013 was a big year of almosts for me. In some ways those almosts really almost broke me. Which sounds silly thinking about it now. This good thing almost happened. This really exciting thing almost happened. And didn't. It's silly because let's be honest, how lucky was I to be so fortunate to have such great things almost happen? Yeah, they didn't happen. But, in some respects it was getting to that almost stage that was the real achievement. Toward the end of 2013 I was beginning to lose my perspective on how far I'd come. How important my journey had been. How much I had achieved. All I could see was this big pile of almosts. This getting down to being the runner up in my own life. All these goals that I had come within a yard of making and faltered in the last few feet. Much like the lovely Juliette Barnes, I had my runner up face, my game face, down. In 2013 the biggest lesson I learnt was how to smile big to hide a bigger sadness.

I'm smiling because even when I don't win I'm fabulous.

Needless to say, it wasn't a good place to be. I fretted. I moaned far too much to Angel, Jenny and my poor suffering husband. I was terrible to be around. I put on my game face and got through the day and then at night I would cry. A lot. I had a bout with depression. In short, 2013 very nearly defeated me. If I had taken my 1984 test*, I am sure I would have failed. For the first time since 2005. 

If the year had ended with just these big almosts in the good column I might have lost all perspective. All focus on everything. I could have very easily gotten lost in my own misery.

But in the last few days of 2013 I almost lost someone very close to me. That almost was the one that broke me. After spending a holiday in and out of hospitals and welcoming the new year with a very firm understanding of just how fragile life is, I felt for the first time in a long time that I got it.

Almost is set up to test you. Almost is there to remind you just how much you want something. It's there to make you reach out and pull those you love close to you. It's the word that reminds you to call your parents more. Tell people you love them more. Almost is your reminder that no matter where things are right now they can always be better or a lot worse.

Almost is not just a word; it's a place. A waiting room. A hospital. It's the distance from one end of a phone to another. Almost is heartbeat. Almost is an ache deep in your chest. Almost is all the tears you hold back because you can't let them go. Almost is hope so big and bright it burns like a bonfire.

I'm not going to go into exactly what happened because that's a bit too personal. But let's just leave it at this: for the first time in a year I woke up. After a year of allowing the positive almosts to break me, it took one big, "this can't be happening, oh God, this can't be happening" almost to save me. To remind me to be grateful for the incredible things I am lucky enough to have. To give me the clarity to reach out to those people I love and hold them close. Closer then I have for far too long. To remind them that I love them. That even if they do the most insane things, I still love them and only want what's best for them.

2013 was a year of almosts. A year of possibilities. I am grateful now for the almosts in my life. For the ability to hope and dream. For the reminder to hold my family and friends close and to say all the things I never get around to saying. Because almost is better then too late.

*My 1984 test is based on my re-reading of the classic Orwell novel. When I read the book as a teenager I couldn't understand how the Winston, the narrator, accepts the totalitarian regime. How he allows himself to be a cog in the propaganda factory. I cheered when he realised that there was a bigger cause worth fighting for. I sobbed at the end when . . . well, you know. When I read the book again in my early 20s while working at my first office job I had a completely different opinion. I couldn't fathom why Winston would want to make waves and give up his decent (albeit soul crushing) life for the promise of something better. I decided after that re-reading of 1984 that if I was in a place where I believed Winston made the wrong decision in his life by trying to fight for change I was in trouble. I'm due for a re-read of 1984 later this year which I'll blog about.