The Hope That Kills You

I hope to be published one day.

Most aspiring authors do, hence the term ‘aspiring author.’ 

We want the big exciting literary agent, the impressive book deal (ideally reached via a bidding war, if at all possible) and the ephemera of our innermost thoughts and ideas legitimised, hardbound into a physical object, and imprinted with its own ISBN. 

We want validation; to turn from a person who makes up stories in their spare time (embarrassing!) into a Published Author (sophisticated.) 

Like a lot of writers, I’ve held this lofty dream in my heart since I was a child of about ten years old. And by the time I was a slightly older child, at the age of twenty-three, I genuinely thought I was about to achieve it. 

After completing the 2014 National Centre for Writing Escalator Programme and signing with a literary agent as a result, I wholeheartedly believed I had my golden ticket. My career as a Published Author was surely soon to begin. 

I would be proven wrong about this. 

In the year or so that followed my signing with the agency, I continued working as a bartender at a Thai restaurant while my agent and I collaborated on my debut novel. I’d sit at the table next to the bar, littered with the duty manager’s notebooks and loose bits of noodle from the family meal, and tap away on my laptop in the break between my lunch and dinner shifts.

When it was finished, my agent sent my novel off to publishers and I waited for the good news. I was anxious to shed my old life, to step out of it like the molted skin of a snake. I’d kick the unwanted, transparent layer behind me and leave it there. It would be recognisable as a shape I used to take, but one I’d now grown out of. 

Months went by and my inbox remained empty. My hope started to metastasise into unbearable, itchy impatience. I wriggled around inside the old, suffocating skin I was desperate to shed, feeling like my bones were crushing against it. 

One night, I returned home exhausted from a busy shift. I thoughtlessly refreshed my emails in expectation of the usual nothing.

But this time there was something. My agent had emailed me earlier that day. 

None of the publishers, whoever they were, wanted my novel. 

We Are Delighted to Inform You That You’ve Been Rejected

“Rejection is a gift!” 

This advice is given to writers all the time. Most of us likely want to return the favour with a punch in the face. Oh really, a gift? To pour all your spare time, effort, and energy into something extremely personal, just to be rejected?

It feels like offering up your actual brain, grey-pink and gelatinous in your hands, and being told it’s not what they’re looking for at this time. 

The unfortunate truth about this profoundly patronising advice is that it’s correct.  

Part of being a writer is being imaginative, occasionally dramatic, and sensitive to the world around us. Hopefully we then harness those traits to create stories that reveal some truth about the human condition. 

What I didn’t realise until after I’d been rejected is that there has to be another, seemingly contradictory trait running parallel to those ones: pragmatism. 

Gut-wrenching as it is, we need to be able to absorb rejection when it comes our way and synthesise the useful parts of it into feedback. To return to the notebook, or keyboard, and pick back up where we left off — or near enough, at least.  

The Drawing Board

The drawing board can feel like a place to plant your flag of defeat; somewhere you point to and say ‘This is where I come when I have failed.’ 

It can also feel slightly terrifying. What if you fail again? And again? And again?

That’s how I felt when my debut was rejected. Reluctantly, I picked myself up and dusted myself off. I was dragging my feet all the way back to the drawing board.

But eventually, I came to realise that it’s a fun – and freeing – place to go. 

When you’re untethered to a specific project or deadline, you can write whatever you feel like writing: that weird novel idea you’ve had in the back of your head since 2010, an experimental short story, maybe even some maudlin and ill-advised poetry. (I tried this last one, but I’m thankful those efforts will never see the light of day.)

It might not feel like it, but the joy of being unpublished comes from the opportunity that’s available to us as writers during that time: to learn, and get better, in private. 

Writing is a solitary practice. It can be lonely and occasionally crazy-making. Tip-tapping away in the shadows with nobody looking at or legitimising what we’re doing, it’s no wonder we’re tempted to hurriedly shove our work, half-finished, into the light. 

Obviously, we wouldn’t write if we didn’t want anybody to read it. But in my opinion, the actual point of the whole thing should be to enjoy — and really make use of — that time when nobody’s watching. 

Well, not nobody. 

I said writing is a solitary practice. It doesn’t need to be. You have so many opportunities for community that are no longer available to you once you’ve signed that publishing contract. 

In the months following my rejection, I got well acquainted with the drawing board. I set up camp there. I knew where they kept the spoons. Because I was nicely settled in, I had the time to write anything and everything, and submit to some competitions.

I failed again. And again. And again. 

Until I didn’t. One of my stories got shortlisted for a competition, and won first place in another. That gave me a boost of confidence. I kept going. 

A long time and several abandoned drafts later, I’d come up with the idea for my current work in progress, the novel I now hope to be my debut. 

With this idea, I gained a place on the Curtis Brown Creative Novel Writing Course. I met a group of brilliant writers with whom I’m still close. I gave, and received, feedback. I experimented and iterated. It occurred to me that if I’d been published at the teenie-tiny age of twenty-three, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity at all. I would never have made those friends; never would have received that feedback. My novel would be worse off for it.

In March of 2026, over ten years since my original participation in the National Centre for Writing Escalator Programme, I gained a place on their Early Careers Residency – an opportunity I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t objectively early in my career. 

That’s why, unfortunately, it is true that rejection is a gift. It teaches you something, and it gives you space. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m now grateful for that first big rejection. 

I’m glad I wasn’t forced to rush into the next idea, just for the sake of shedding skin I actually had yet to grow out of.