Episode 16 - How to Move Through Disappointment in Publishing

If you’ve ever been so TIRED of feeling disappointment as you’re navigating the publishing world as a writer, THIS episode is for you! After getting crushed by a rejection (yet again 🙄😅) I had a major realization that changed everything, one that will be so useful for the rest of my career. Seriously, I think this might be my best episode ever 😅

Mentioned in this episode:

• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Stephen King’s the Shining
• Solaris contest (in French)

Recorded on March 18, 2026

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Leftyobase Writing Podcast where I share with vulnerability and positivity my journey towards making all of my writing dreams come true. I hope you learn with me as I go from the things that go well and what doesn't go so well. But mainly I wish it inspires you to pursue your own writing dreams. Now let's begin.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to Lefty Obi's Writing Podcast. As you can see, if you are watching the video either on Spotify or YouTube, it's dark now. I was supposed to record this episode this afternoon, but there was a power outage again. Thank you, Winter in Quebec. So I couldn't record because we need a good Wi-Fi connections to do that with the script, the software I use to record and edit podcasts in the software I really love to use to record. So I said it's no big deal. I record on Friday, but then I was like, no, this needs to be done right now. So I've put the kid to bed and I'm ready to record for you today because it has been a week. Not really like the whole week, really. It's been like a few two days. So if you follow me on Instagram or on TikTok, you already know. But if you don't, there has been some news in the past week, which I will tell you about in which influence the topic of today, which is how to move through disappointment in publishing. And as you might think, the news isn't good. But as you can see from my tone of voice, from my face, if you're watching this, I've moved past it, and that's why I really wanted to do an episode about this because I think it's so freaking important, and I had to relearn this. So I did an episode way back on how to deal with rejection, but I felt this needed to be wider than just rejection, because disappointment can happen at other stages of the career, not really regarding a rejection or an acceptance. And I feel like the sooner we have tools to move through it, the better we will be for our entire career. So that's why I wanted to focus it on the disappointment because that's really the big feeling we often get when getting a rejection. So it will help you deal with rejection too, of course. So, update since the last episode, the first good thing that happened is I finished translating my horror short story that I want to submit to a French contest in Quebec. So I wrote it first in English and I'm translating it to French. It took longer than I thought because it turns out all the good words I had found in English, I had to find them again in French. And French has less words. You just need to work with the sentences differently to get the same meaning that you can get with one word in English. So it's been a process to find this into find a rhythm in French to get the same meaning with just different words. Basically, it it was longer than I thought, but I actually ended up having fun. And when I was rereading it before sending it to my dear friend, who is also a high school French teacher who accepted to read it and fix my typos and mistakes because yes, it's been some time since I've written in French or even read in French. She's helping me, but I reread it and I was quite proud of it. We'll see. I will not get my hopes up on this particular thing, but I'm trying, you know, we have to try. I finished this, sent it to my friend, and then last week, so Tuesday, I met with my amazing, amazing agent, Amira, and we discussed my second book. So she finished reading it. We had a meeting to discuss the points that needs to be edited in the next version of the book, the plan of action, so how we're going to work to put this book from the draft that I submitted to her to a draft that we can send to editors that we can put on submission. So exciting! So we had again an amazing meeting. I really love Amira, and I'm so so so so so lucky to be working with her. It was amazing. We had so much fun during the meeting. I can see she was excited about the story. She mentioned things that made so much sense, and again, like she asked me just one question, and I was like, oh, you're right. I need to figure that out. This is actually super important, and the sooner I figure it out, the better for the entire story. It's a little world-building element that could seem not that important, but that actually really is. So I was like, Okay, yes, that's why I chose you. That's why I chose to work with you because you're so good. So we had fun with that. So now we are setting a tentative goal at the end of June to finish it and submit it to editors, which would be kind of ideal because the summer is slow in publishing, so they would have time to read it before like getting to work on like offers, maybe, uh, when the publishing season starts in September. But we also don't want to hold ourselves to really strict deadlines because the goal is to have the best book possible. Obviously, this is our tentative goal, we'll see how it goes. But Amira felt like the amount of work I had to do was feasible in that period of time, which is actually kind of amazing because it was like my first draft that I submitted to her, and I'm putting this in quote unquote first draft because I worked on it for over a year, but I did the kind of work that I did on three drafts in for three years for my first book. So it doesn't feel like a first draft to me because it's more thought-through. I've did the timeline, I've did some research, so it's really more thought that my usual pens first draft, but it's still a first draft on a line level, so it will need kind of a lot of work, but at the same time, doing the short story for the overlook anthology coming up, it showed me that I'm actually capable of producing better words, better scenes, better moments faster than I used to. So the June seems possible, even though it's kind of short for what I've been capable of doing in the past. So, anyway, we'll see how it goes. And I will come back because I started working on it this morning, but it's like linked to the disappointment piece. So we'll come back to that. But I've started working on it, I'm really excited. I have a strong plan going forward. I'm a little afraid because I feel like there is two things in particular that I'm not sure I'm going to put off. One is setting as a character, so important with horror, so important with unted house story, which my second book is. It's a new approach to the unted house trope, but the house still needs to be a character, like that's super important. And my agent said it, better readers said it too, so I know this is important, but I don't know how I will do that because I've never done that before. Having the setting really be a character, so that's a challenge for me. And also, there's my main character who I absolutely dearly loved. But some better readers have mentioned difficulties like bonding with her, rooting for her at the beginning. I seem to be writing those female characters we have a hard time bonding with, just because that they're I like to write anti-hero. My stories, if you like story grid, all my stories have been lately horror with morality for the inner genre. And so when you're dealing with morality, it's an unlikable character because it starts, and the way I do it is I start them quote unquote bad and move them up to being good. And when you do that, the character at the beginning is not the most likable, and that's actually what Stephen King did in The Shining. Like it's a horror morality story, that's why I studied it so much because it is the masterwork in doing horror with morality. I absolutely love it. But it works better because it's a man. Let's just let's just be fair, let's just be honest here. Unlikable man character reader tends to go at it, but unlikable female character, we don't want that. But anyway, I'm not here to. This is a topic for a future episode that I will never do, but I love my unlikable character. That's it, that's just how it is. It's not that they're unlikable, it's just they're complicated, they're not like this easy to love character. But personally, all that to say that I love her dearly in all her flaws, in all her craziness, in everything that she is. I absolutely adore this character. She makes me laugh. I love her attitude. Like, I really love her, but I don't think I've managed to put it on the page in a way that a reader just coming in, like in the first few chapters, would feel the same kind of love I have for her. So I know that this is a problem in execution. I don't want to change my character. This is never what I want to do. I just want to change the execution so that the reader can love her as much as I love her straight from the beginning. So that's my goals. We'll see how it goes. But I'm I have to say those are my two biggest challenges with this new book. But it's a good thing to have those big challenges because I feel like it's a sign that I'm stretching myself as a writer, as a creator, that I'm pushing the boundaries of what I can do, and that's the only way that you can grow, and that's also the way that you produce better books at the end of the day. So it's a good sign that I'm stressing myself, it's a good sign that I'm afraid, and I know I can do it because I was so afraid, so stretching myself, so getting out of my comfort zone with my first book, and in the end, I met up to the challenge. I really managed to do an amazing book, I'm super proud of that I know works, that I know is strong, because not only did many agents set it, got three offers of representation, but also editors, I've said it. No, we don't have a deal yet, but editors have said like it was super strong. So I know. So, anyway, moving on to the news that I had yesterday, which is I got a form rejection for my overlook short story. And because I had followed the editor on threads and been brave enough to send them thread saying when can we expect some response on this, and they said anywhere from here to June because we're sending rejection and whole notice as we're moving along. So when I heard this, I was like, okay, I know the chance of getting into the ontology are super slim because they said up front maybe only one story would get in. Maybe two, but like it was more a one-story thing. And also, even though they put the limit of no writer with a big five deal could enter and submit a story, there is still some pretty amazing authors in the RR space who have published with indie press, self-published, were absolutely amazing, who could still submit stories. So, you know, the competition was there no matter what, no matter this criteria of no big five publications. So I knew the chance of getting into the ontology was super slim. So I told myself a hold notice notice. Sorry, I'm I have a hard time with the H in this, a hold, a hold notice would be like a victory. It would mean I did something right, it would mean the story lended right with the editor, and even if I don't end up with a publication at the end, like the hold notice, or at least maybe a personalization. And because of last episode, if you haven't listened to it, it's about when I had discovered that I had lost my hope. I wanted to regain it, and I was really proud of this overlook story, like super, super proud. My better readers loved it, and I was like, there is particularly at the end, like the bar scene. I love it so much. It's such a beautiful homage that I did to Stephen King's The Shining. I I told you so many times I love this book so much. I've been obsessed with this book for so long. It's the book that made me want to be a writer, a horror writer, and I really did a big homage to it in my story. So I had hope that it could work. I was like, maybe it could work. I had this glimmer of hope of like maybe it could work. And it didn't. I got a form rejection, no personalization. I do think that it's because like they just got a lot of submission and they wanted to respond as quickly as possible, which is like fair and nice of them, but it hurt pretty badly. If you want to see like my first reaction, I actually filmed it, posted on TikTok and Instagram, but that was not all the crying I did after that. I did a voice message to my dear dear friend Vivian, and I started crying like ugly cry. I was so freaking disappointed. And what was good was that before when I got rejection that really made me feel bad, I always went to the place of I must suck. This story must suck. I'm not a good writer, I'll never be a good writer. It's not worth even trying because I'm such a bad writer. Before, that's where I used to go to. That was the place I was going to in my mind when I was receiving rejection. But this time around, I really said, not right away, but after some time, I was like, it's probably just weren't what they were looking for with this ontology. This or maybe one because they invited contributing authors, like the most amazing, beautiful names in horror, were invited to write stories for this anthology and they had to submit this story in January, I think, or February. So they have already read the story from the invited contributors. So if a story is too close to one of the authors who I've been invited to the ontology, they could not publish the one from the unknown author who just submitted randomly. So I really went to it must be one of the two. Either it's not what you're looking for or they have something too similar, which I think is most often than we think the case with rejection we get, especially when we get to a point where our craft is developed enough. So I went there, but the other place I went, and the reason why I ugly cried while messaging my friend and talking to my amazing, incredible parents that I have so much, is why oh why does it always not work? I was like, I told my parents, and I'm going to be completely honest here. I was like, thank God for my agent who's like a proof that I'm not completely delusional in thinking that I'm good at this and that I can actually make something happen in my writing career because I have this agent and I don't take it for granted. I know that it's super competitive to get an agent. I know that the level of trust an agent needs to have in you to work with you, not only on one book, but on two books. Like my agent has worked so much for me without getting nothing out of it, you know. She's worked for Frey for so much, and like I know, and I think she knows too that this is going to pay off at some point. Like, that's why we keep on working together, and I'm so excited for this to pay off for her, too. Like, this is something I find amazing with working with an agent who's earlier in her career because like we could grow our career together. I just find this amazing. So I know how amazing having an agent is, and I know it's not a fluke. Because I have my agent, I know I'm really making progress in this career, and I really know I'm doing something right with this career. But why, oh why, is it so freaking hard for me to get published? Why, oh why is it so freaking hard for me to make like money with this? Because I want to be a professional writer. It's not that I'm obsessed with money or like that I need it, but I want to be a professional writer, which implies getting paid to write, getting paid for my stories, getting paid for the value that I've put into my stories. And I was like, oh, why is it so hard? And I think that's what hurts so much because it was such an amazing opportunity, and I didn't even get close to getting it. I think that's what hurts so badly. So yeah, that's what happened with that, and that's what inspired today's episode. So I will go into the topic soon, but I just wanted to tell you that because I love this story so much, because I think it's so good, and because my ultimate goal is to get readers. I decided to publish this short story via my newsletter, so I'm going to send it to my newsletter subscriber on Friday. So this is going to be what I'm doing right now to have this story reach some reader. I'm going to send it to my newsletter subscriber on Friday. So if you'd like to read it, if you do me the absolute joy of my life and for this story too of wanting to read it, just go in the show notes, click the link, and subscribe to my newsletter. I will send it on Friday. And just to give you a little tease, it's the story of a woman and her baby in the 40s who seeks safety and refuge at the Overlook Hotel where her father works. But of course, because we know about the shining, we know that it's really not what she's going to find there. So uh thun thun thun, what's going to happen for her there? I really love the story. I love this character. Like I said, the final bar scene is just so great. So if you want to read it, go subscribe to my newsletter and you'll get it on Friday, which is exciting. And I've shared this on Instagram, and already five people subscribed to my newsletter specifically to read this story, and that in and of itself is already a victory. It may not be thousands of people, but I don't need thousands. I what I want is readers, and those are five people who genuinely want to read me, and that's amazing. That's really is amazing, and that is a joy. So if you want to be one of those people, go ahead and subscribe right now. So now let's move on to the topic part of this episode. So, okay, I shared what happened, but what came out of feeling this pain, especially linked to the hope I felt like I lost, that I talked about in my previous episode. I think what was the worst was it was like a proof that it's not safe to hope. It became this proof that C, when you hope for something good, you get hurt. So therefore you shouldn't hope. That was the place my brain went to. That was the place my nervous system went to. And it was like it was flashing red in my brain. C, when you hope, you get hurt. That's why you weren't hoping anymore. But at the same time, because I've seen that the loss of my hope was also affecting me negatively, I was like, there needs to be a way to reconcile both of those things, like still having place for hope, but at the same time, not. Being so destroyed and crushed by disappointment when something quote unquote bad happens, and basically it's not really when something bad happens, it's just disappointment happens when something happens differently than you hoped it would. That's when disappointment happened. And so that's why I thought it was so important for me to do this episode because I've been following writers on social media in their podcasts for so freaking long at all stages of their career. And I've seen that we're never immune to disappointment, no matter where we are in our writing career. I think that probably just Stephen King. And even then, like I'm sure he could feel disappointment if like a book performed less than the one before, like low sales will be a reason why people get disappointed. If their first book sells quickly on submission and the next one doesn't sell, it's a reason to be disappointed. If you get lots of bad reviews online and you thought the reviews would be good, that could be disappointed too. If you hope for a nomination at a certain price and you don't get it, it could be a cause for disappointment. Like this career can be potentially filled with so much disappointment. And so I think it's so important to see it has how can I move through disappointment. And talking with my dear, awesome, amazing friend Vivian yesterday, I talked about it and she was like, Why do you need the validation? And I took a step back because I worked a lot on validation and the need to have my worth be proven by a third party and external people coming in saying you're worthy through, for example, an acceptance letter. And I was like, I really don't believe this is it because I worked a lot on it, but sometimes you can you can have worked on it and actually you still need to work on it. So I was like, maybe this is it. But I I looked at it and I was like, no, it was not validation, I was seeking. So then we kept on talking, and then she really like nailed it, she really saw what the problem was, and the problem was that I had put my hope on something super specific. My hope was on this story getting at least a little bit of recognition in this anthology from this editor, and she was like, that's where the danger in the hope is. And I was like, God damn it, you're right. And I feel like at every point in our journey, the disappointment can come when we put our hope into something specific, a specific number of sales, a specific contest we hope to place in, a specific price we hope to win, a specific review we hope of getting, a specific blurb we hope of getting, a specific amount of money we hope our book deal will be, a specific publisher we hope to be able to work with. All of those things. It's when we put our hope into those tiny things that we have no control over. No control. And we don't even know when, how those things happen. We we don't know, we don't have control over this, and it's not really tangible the result that it will give too, like one review, one award. Sometimes it's really hard to say, okay, what difference would it really make? But we put our hope there, and that's when the disappointment came in because our hope was high for this specific thing, and it's easy to see see it didn't work because it's so specific that we can get confirmation that it didn't work, and that's when the pain comes. And when I thought about it more, I was like, if I put my hope on the global things I want to achieve with my writing, getting readers, getting money from my writing, having more time to write, have a career, have my place in this publishing world, eventually writing full-time as part of having more time to write. But if I focus on those things, and also helping other writers, which is what I'm doing with this podcast, but when I put my hope on those big picture things, then it's almost impossible to be disappointed. Because, like I said, if I put my hope on having like readers for my story, the five people who choose to join my mailing list specifically to read me, it's me having a proof that my hope is not in vain, that my hope is rightly put, you know? Because those people want to read it, but if I hope to get a thousand people on my newsletter by Friday, then of course I can get disappointed, you know? But if I'm just putting my hope into having more readers, every single little reader on my way is a victory, and every single reader allows me to feel good, to feel like I'm accomplishing something, to feel like all the time, the energy I'm putting is not wasted. Because I think that was really the big thing with the disappointment is feeling like you put all this time, all this energy, all your love, your soul, your passion into something, and then you get nothing when you get your hope on one specific thing. When it doesn't happen, it's like all the effort you put is for nothing. It's like all the work you did on that one book was all wasted because you didn't reach that thing that it was supposed to do. But if the goal is ultimately to get there, then you know it's not wasted because it's a step into getting better, which would at some point get you to your big destination, big picture goal, you know? So when I figured this out, it was like a weight I've lifted on my shoulders because it was like putting back the power into my own hands and putting my attention and my hope into a safer place. And it felt like disappointment was in this this big bag monster just lurking behind me at all times. I'm not afraid of the number of dollars I will make me my first book deal now because the hope is to make money with my writing. So no matter what I make, I get a step forward in my writing career, I get a step forward into gaining readers, I get money for my writing, I get potentially maybe time out of all of this. You see how every little thing that happens in the journey after that is just a step closer to those things instead of being a proof that it didn't work. Um so oh my god, this realization was everything, and I hope it's helping you to see it this way. Before I finish this episode, I just want to give you the step by step of what I actually did to move through it that I can I can reuse if I ever go back into hoping for something super specific and that get knocked down by disappointment, but that you can use to the next time you feel disappointment or if you feel it right now. And I think it's actually super important. Like, I really allowed myself to do all those steps yesterday and this morning, and I think that's why I managed to move through it so fast because I was really, really crushed yesterday, like incapable of writing crushed, like crying crushed, listening to the torture parts department crushed that tells Swifties everything they need to know about the mental state yesterday. And I managed to get through right now where I am genuinely hopeful again and genuinely excited again. So the first thing is don't bypass your emotion. This is a big one because I think sometimes we can feel like we shouldn't be disappointed anymore, we shouldn't feel sad anymore, we shouldn't cry anymore, we shouldn't, you know, shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't. But if you have an emotion, the best way to get rid of it is to feel it. The way out is true. So just really allow yourself to feel it, and that's exactly what I did yesterday. So I really sat down, not sat down, I really just allow myself to cry. So sometimes this is actually the next step, which is talk it out with people you trust. But it's sometimes a way to allow yourself to really feel the feelings because I wasn't fully ugly crying until I talk with Vivian because I feel so safe with her that I felt safe to really live my emotion completely. And I think sometimes it's important because when you're alone with yourself, you can sort of block the emotions by being too much in your head. But when you're talking out, when you're with someone, it's like you're safe to just express it. So I hope you have someone like that in your life. If you don't, sending you so, so, so much love and hoping and manifesting for you that you will get this person. But if you do, like recognize how amazing this is and go seek out their help. So talking it out is important, and also what I did after that, which is the third step, is just step away from the entire thing. I know that sometimes personally, I feel like when something bad, quote unquote, happen, because I so want to make this work, like this career is so important to me. I so much want to make it work that my instinct is to go back to work even harder to get the good thing, you know. But it was actually my other friend, Ashley, who also read my story and helped me with it and helped me to feel good about it too, really, really good. I messaged her to say that I had a rejection, and she was the one who told me I was the I was like, How do you deal with this appointment? Because she's also like submitting short story and everything, and querying agent. And she said, I just move away from it, I just do other things, I just do craft and I I just take time off. And I had such such a visceral reaction of oh no, I cannot do that. When she said that, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, I cannot. I can't, I can take time off, I can stop writing.

unknown 33:11

What the hell?

SPEAKER_01 33:13

I truly think that it's because when I'm in it, when I'm not going through all those things, I really genuinely love writing so much. This is the thing I love the most. So I think that's where the resistance came. But actually, like the day that I was feeling the emotion the most. So Monday when I got the news, I couldn't write, I couldn't read, I didn't want to do anything. So I just allowed myself to do nothing. So I was like, what would make me feel good right now? And the answer was do a long dinner, like cook for a long time. So I did tofu nuggets that you do, like the double, you put it in like flour and then in milk, and then you put it in like the panko, and then you do it two times, and so it was super long. It took me like an hour just to do like this process, but it actually made me feel good to be in my head, and like I said, I put on the tortured poet department so good, and even better when you're sad, like this is the album to be sad to. So I put it up like super loud in my living room while cooking, and it actually made me good, and then I was eating with my family, and then I don't even remember what I did, but it felt oh, and then I messaged my my friend after dinner. We talked for too long, but it really felt really, really good. So I just allowed myself to step away from it, and I think it could be okay to need like a few days. Like, I don't I think it's important not to wallow and just really stay in that energy of oh whoa me, but at the same time, like intentionally stepping away to do something else that makes you feel good. Like Ashley mentioned she's doing some craft project. I know I have my piano behind me. I know that playing piano makes me feel really good because I don't see time passing by, like, time really flows when I'm playing piano. So doing things like that just to get away from the writing completely, it could be a good step too. And the last part, the last step of the process to help you move through it is to get back into creating. Because the disappointment never really comes from the creation itself, it doesn't come from the art, it doesn't come from the process of creating. That's the part that usually when you want to do this, you love. Like that's the fun part. It's the yes, it can be challenging, but it's also fun to figure out, you know, like I said, with like the the things I'm not sure how to work out in my novel. Like it's a challenge, but it's a good type of challenge, you know, it's a puzzle, it's fun. And the disappointment comes from the publishing side of it. So yeah, you can sometimes link it to I'm not good enough. So you link it with the art, but it's not the fault of the art, it's the publishing side of thing when especially when you're pursuing trad, but I think also when you're self-publishing, you're not immune to disappointment. And it's the publishing side who makes you disappointed, it's not the writing. So going back to the writing, to the creation, to the part that we love, to the playfulness of it, I think it's the best solution to really tie it all up. And this morning when I woke up, I was feeling better, but I was still feeling funky, like I didn't want it to train. And I had taken an entire day off to write. Like I had taken a vacation day today from my day job to dedicate to writing, working on my new novel, and I was like, I don't want to do it, I don't feel like doing it, and gosh, I hate it when I feel this way. So at first I again allowed myself not to do it, so I was like, okay, what would feel good? So I brewed myself a cup of coffee, and then I sit down with my friend's novel, with Vivian's novel, because it's so freaking amazing. So I sat down to read it, and then I was like, okay, now it's time. Now you need to go and at least try. Because I know sometimes with resistance, no matter where it comes from, the best solution often is to just sit down and try to do it, to just start doing it, and it's through starting and doing it that you realize that you move past the resistance. So I was like, I will just try and see. And if it doesn't work, if it doesn't feel good, like almost right away, I will allow myself to step aside and do something else, even though I've dedicated the entire day. I will not be rushing, pushing this, forcing this. If I don't feel like it, I will just move away. And what I did is I printed out like the feedback I've gotten, and I started making sense of it. And before I knew it, like I was back into the creation and I felt good again. So it was really the publishing who made me feel bad. It wasn't the creation. So coming full circle through the movement out of disappointment is to go back to the creation because this is the thing that will always be there. Always. It's the thing that's there at the very beginning when you first say, I want to write a book, I think I want to be a writer. The joy and the fun of creating is the first thing you get. And then even when you're the biggest writer ever, or even when your career was going well and suddenly it goes really bad, the creation is always there and it will always be there, and it's the foundation you can always go back to because this is the root of it all. Like the career, the readers, the publishing side of it doesn't exist if you're not creating. So when in doubt, always go back to the root of the creation itself. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope it's been useful. If it has been, and if you think like some of your friends could benefit from it, don't hesitate to share the episode with them. And if you enjoy my podcast, be sure to subscribe to it, to follow it wherever you get your podcast so that you know when a new episode comes out every single week. But thank you so much for being here, and I'm wishing you a lovely week of writing.