Rejection (and why you shouldn’t dwell on it)

Hello, everyone! I hope you’ve had a safe and fun summer. I’m going to delve into a tricky topic (rejection), but first, some housekeeping items.

NOVEMBER EVENT

Save the Date!

Saturday, November 22, 2025

A Celebration of Authors & Zines – Los Angeles Public Library – Central Branch – 630 W. 5th Street, L.A.

1 pm – My Publishing Journey – working with small, medium and the Big 5 publishers (more details TBD)

This talk will be part of the library’s Celebration of Authors & Zines event, and will feature a brief presentation from me + a “fireside chat” between me and a fabulous staff member of LAPL + an audience Q&A. I plan to disclose some insider info re: writing & publishing (including working with literary agents + editors, movie deals, etc.), so please do stop by for a fun & informative chat. Bring all your questions!

Isn’t she beautiful?? The Central Branch of my beloved LAPL, my home library from childhood. Photo by Juan Guevara.

SHOES OFF, PLEASE 

We had a great launch event for Shoes Off, Please in June at Children’s Book World! I got to see some wonderful folks from different phases of my life. A former coworker I hadn’t seen in twenty years came along, as well as a sweet college friend with her sister & entourage. I was also thrilled to see an author friend from Long Beach, along with her awesome daughter + friends from the South Bay. So cool! I love meeting readers in person, and it’s always a treat to see familiar faces, too.

My neighborhood bookstore, Children’s Book World, always has a good vibe. My friend author-illustrator Benson Shum created that cute display with the paper tree + his character Anzu holding up a book. And my other friend Matthew Burgess wrote the book standing near mine — Fireworks (it recently won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators!).

Free merch! If you’d like a complimentary signed, personalized bookplate for your copy of the book + a postcard with Myo Yim‘s beautiful cover image, please do contact me here and I’ll mail the items directly to you. Until Sept 19^th or while supplies last 🙂

And now, on to the matter at hand…

REJECTION (and why you shouldn’t dwell on it)

In my last post, I’d mentioned that a long-ago manuscript rejection recently turned into an unexpected surprise. Well, get yourself a cool drink because I’m about to describe that emotional rollercoaster, and specifically, why it’s important not to dwell on rejection. You never know what’ll happen…ten years later!

So over a decade ago, I wrote a middle grade novel – a story aimed at kids in my favorite period of childhood (around 3^rd to 5^th grade). My story had some cool characters and a very poignant ending. That manuscript got me a really big literary agent, whom I’ll refer to as “Big Agent,” who thought the story was highly commercial. Well, Big Agent and I went through several revisions together, and when the manuscript was finally ready to submit to publishing houses, Big Agent said, “I’m so excited for you!” WOW! That made me anticipate the best possible outcome: a slam dunk sale with a Big 5 Publisher, perhaps even a much-coveted auction scenario with multiple publishers bidding for the book. OMG!!

You can probably guess that life had other plans. In fact, life was about to put me through a torturous Rejection Journey.

Rejection! DOH!!

When you’re with a Big Agent, your manuscript gets reviewed immediately. Editors at publishing houses are eager to see whatever Big Agent submits to them because it’s likely something good, something big. But what that also means is that you will get reactions quite quickly, since these editors don’t want to keep the agent waiting forever. Editors want to maintain a good business relationship with Big Agent, so they’ll play nice and they certainly won’t ghost (which is what often happens to smaller agents — totally sucks).

Anyway, nice rejection after nice rejection began rolling in from the dozen editors who’d seen my manuscript. The rejections ranged from “Good characterization, but the story is too slow” or “I didn’t connect with the character’s voice, but the plot is captivating.” Lots of confusing opinions that basically all meant the same thing: we don’t want your manuscript. It felt like my publishing career was over before it even began (this all happened several years before my picture book journey began, with a different agent).

This was how I walked around L.A. for many months.

That Rejection Journey was really ego-bruising, and Big Agent lost interest in me, which wasn’t at all a surprise (as much as it stung, I knew from speaking with writer friends that this was totally normal, since big agents are busy with a ton of big clients with big projects to service). We went our separate ways. Big Agent continued on to become a Huge Agent, and I went on to be, well, me. HA! (I got a different agent several years afterwards and a handful of picture books published (yay!), but I’ll be honest: the journey has been quieter + slower than if I’d had a big sale with Big Agent out of the gate).

Anyway, little did I know what would happen a decade later…

Not too long ago, my husband (aka The Geno) mentioned that my rejected middle grade story could make a good screenplay. He’d always loved the central mystery and had some ideas about how to adapt it for a potential feature film. The beauty of a screenplay is that it’s much shorter than a novel, and usually faster-paced because it doesn’t require the internal monologue or descriptions of a novel. Meaning we were able to trim out most of the sagging middle, the area that always had the most problems.

And this part is a true miracle: We set the screenplay story in Seoul, and at the suggestion of a producer friend of The Geno, we submitted it to the film division of the South Korean government (they’re looking to develop English-language film projects set in South Korea).

They loved our screenplay!! We were notified this past spring that the film division wants to meet us and start the ball rolling for development, etc. WHOA.

So what’s next?? Well in a few months, the South Korean government will be sponsoring our journey to Seoul so that we can meet with producers, do some location scouting, visit visual effects companies, etc. The Geno will spend about a month out there, and I will join him for about a little over a week (since I have a number of obligations requiring me to remain stateside).

I don’t know what’ll come of this project, but I do know that there’s great interest & momentum brewing. And for me, the best part is knowing that my years of working on a manuscript weren’t completely lost, which is how it felt during the depressing Rejection Journey.

Cry. Smile. Repeat. That’s life.

And this brings me to my central point: don’t dwell on rejection. Easier said than done, I know. But the fact that you’re receiving rejections means you’re doing something brave: putting your projects and yourself out there. I wish I could tell my former self, the one who was dispirited and heartbroken, to mourn the rejected project only for a little while. Move on quickly to joyful projects that remind you of why you engage in creative activities in the first place. I spent a good year feeling demoralized and unmotivated to write. I wasted precious time doubting myself and thinking about “what could’ve been had my book sold with Big Agent.” Maybe someday I’ll turn back to that manuscript to rework the slow, sloppy middle. I still love the characters and the story!

These days, I try to handle rejections with the attitude, “Onward! Next!”

You want to reject me? BRING IT ON.

It’s really difficult to do that, especially when you’ve worked hard on a project for months or years, but you truly don’t know what the future holds. I’ve trained myself to have multiple projects going on at once, so that I don’t have all my hopes tied to one creative project. I’ve also released my hold on publishing books – yes, it’s still my lifelong passion to write and publish books, but it’s only one facet of my existence, and I’ve been having so much fun doing other things. I’ll save that for another post, since this one’s running long!

UNTIL THE NEXT TIME…

We have quite a bit of travel coming up before the end of this year — Europe + North Africa, and then over to Asia. So I’ll have fun tidbits when I’m back. If there are any topics you’d like for me to cover, do reach out. I love hearing from readers!

Anyway, until the next time, be well and be safe!

Your friend,

Helena

Bonus! A few highlights from the summer: