On rejection (Or: I'm a real writer now)

There is something about rejection that makes you feel like a real writer.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's like there's something in that "Thanks, but no thanks" letter that bonds you to all the other thousands of writers out there, struggling to make it, trying to figure out how to get that story published or that article accepted.

(Ok, I can't really talk about articles, because I've had about a bazillion articles published by now. But I don't really care about the articles I've written because they all have boring titles like "HHS announces new ACA initiative" or "Brokers weigh individual mandate." BOR-ING.)

So back in March, when I was being lazy busy and couldn't blog, I submitted a short story to a magazine. I was pretty excited, even though I knew the competition was extremely stiff. I thought my story was pretty freakin' cute, and well-written, and it seemed in line with the other stories in the magazine.

A few days ago, my SASE came back in the mail.

(OK, let me stop here and say the SASE system is torture. First, I spent the six month period they tell you it will take to hear back wondering if my story even GOT there (yes, I realize now I could have bought shipping confirmation/tracking. But who has that kind of money to throw around?) Then, when you do get your SASE back, your rejection letter is addressed in your own handwriting.

It's just kind of depressing, is all.)

Anyway, so the letter came back, and it was fat. And I got really excited, because fat letters are usually good, right? 

Well, in this case, they were kind enough to return my story along with my form rejection.

Let me make this clear: I am totally NOT lamenting this rejection or blaming the magazine. I kind of loved the whole experience, actually: sending it out, waiting (OK, maybe that part I didn't like), hearing back. It was my first real professional writing experience (since I started taking this whole writing thing seriously, anyway), and it was amazing.

Now I just have to think of something creative to do with the letter. Stephen King hung his on a tack. A friend of mine suggested keeping a chart with a gold star for every rejection.

Do you have a creative/fun way to keep track of your rejections? 

(P.S. Thank you all so much for welcoming me back with such lovely open arms! I was kind of paranoid that everyone would be all "Who?" when I posted or not really care. But you didn't and that's awesome and I think you're pretty swell, too.)

Should Writers Talk About Their Rejections?

Most writers I know have blogs, Twitters, or some other kind of public forum onto which they can vent all of their feelings and thoughts about the publishing world. (This is probably because most of the writers I know, I've met online. But I digress.) They'll talk about frustrations with their own WIPs, characters from pop culture that annoy them, weird people they meet in real life, email woes, and more. It's nice to have a support system there to tell us that we're not crazy, and to remind us that we're not going through this alone.

But when it comes time to query your novel, how public should you be about the process - particularly your rejection ratio?

I have seen many writers discussing their rejection stats very publicly. To me, that always seemed counterproductive. I've heard repeatedly that pretty much the first thing an agent will do when they think they might be interested in representing you is Google your name. What if they do, and they find a blog or Twitter feed full of rejection stats? Even if the mention seems harmless - maybe something as simple as a running total in your sidebar - it could be potentially damaging, and color the opinion of the agent who was about to fall in love with your work.

I think sometimes we forget that the querying process is about professional communication. During the discussion about the queries hashtag and its various benefits and drawbacks, I read on another blog a commenter who said, in no other industry would it be acceptable to pull actual quotes from business cover letters (which are personal communications) and post them in a public forum, regardless of intent. I thought that was an excellent point, and I think it can be applied in this case, as well. If you were applying for a job in a traditional - but highly competitive - field, would you want to attach your name to the number of people who had turned you down? Absolutely not! You would want the HR managers at AwesomeCompany to think that every company you were interviewing with was champing at the bit to offer you the position. And I think the same rule should apply here - keep quiet about your rejections, and let the writing speak for itself.

I'm not alone in my opinion on the matter. I've heard agents say that's not a smart idea (both in real life and on Twitter), but when I turned to the Internet to try to find some evidence/quotes for a reader, I came up short. Being a journalist by trade, I didn't think that was right. So I contacted Weronika Janczuk, literary agent with D4EO Literary, and asked if she would mind sharing her opinion on the subject. Because she is seriously awesome (I mean, really, really awesome), she graciously agreed. I think she worded it perfectly, so here's verbatim what she had to say:

I think this is one of those odd reverse-psychology things.

If I saw, for example, that someone had a 75% request rate based on the query and the sample pages, I would totally want to read that submission and, if I loved it, try to get in the race for the writer.

If I saw that the request rate was 5%, I would immediately go into reading the submission with a 'this will probably be terrible' mentality, and it will be harder for the writer to amuse me.

Of course, there are always those stories about writers getting 100 rejections before they find the agent and go on to be bestsellers, so a simple statistic wouldn't keep me from falling in love with a story if I did, in fact, love it.

My suggestion is for writers to not share the details. I'm not an agent who's going to go through a potential client's blog entirely, but I will skim a few posts and the one thing that could really turn me off is a really snarky/negative attitude. Anything else is okay (for me), but that means nothing when other agents may feel turned off by the sharing of such details.

I totally think it's okay for writers to share after they sign with an agent, and I think it's totally okay for writers to be like 'Been querying for three weeks, one partial request, hoping,' but a really detailed breakdown can be kind of unnerving and off-putting.

I think Weronika's last paragraph brings up a great point - I love those post-signing stories, where we hear all about how many queries it took. Things like that keep me going, and I know they keep my writer-friends going as well. And once you've signed, there's absolutely nothing damaging about admitting that it took you 50 rejections to get there - in fact, it might just help encourage a fellow writer who is close to calling it quits.


But until you actually sign on with an agent, it's probably best to keep your rejection talk to a minimum. If you need to let off some steam, email your crit partners, or get a group of writing friends together for coffee and trash the agents who rejected you in the privacy of your own home. If you don't have anyone to vent to, there are a ton of great communities out there that you can dive into to find some people (just remember that everything you say on forums can probably be attached to your name, too, so keep it professional. Mostly I'm suggesting that you find friends/support groups here and then take it to a private chat or email if you want to complain about anything. Also I've only used about half of these so I can't speak to the level of awesome/not awesome):

• Absolute Write
• NaNoWriMo Forums
• YAlitchat 
• SCBWI (especially your local chapters/crit groups!)
• Writer's Digest forums

If all of those fail (though I honestly can't imagine that they would), just join in the conversation on blogger or Twitter! I've made great writing friends that way, and come my time to query, I know they'll be there to listen to me if I need them. But of course, I'll keep it all out of public view. (When I manage to snag an agent, though, I promise to let all you lovely readers know.)

Special thanks to Weronika Janczuk for answering my email so quickly!    

Famous People Get Rejected, Too!

I'm inching closer to querying (but it's still off in the distance, not even close enough for me to grab...yet.), which of course makes me think about rejection.

Rejection.

What an ugly word.

We writers like to soothe ourselves by saying the usual things:

"My manuscript isn't for everyone."
"Just because this agent rejected it doesn't mean that one will!"
"I didn't really want to work with that agent anyway!" *sticks tongue out*
"Everyone gets rejected! Even the really, really, really famous authors!"

Fortunately for our sanity, that last statement is actually true! For awhile now, I've been collecting information about the rejection stats of some famous writers. Read them and feel slightly better about yourself. For today, anyway.

• The original title of Catch-22 was Catch-18, but Simon and Schuster planned to publish it during the same season that Doubleday was bringing out Mila 18 by Leon Uris. Doubleday complained, and Joseph Heller changed the title. Why did he choose 22? Because Simon and Schuster was the 22nd publisher to read the manuscript. Catch-22 has sold more than 10 million copies, and the title phrase is now a part of the English language.
• Stephen King received many, many rejections in his lifetime, including dozens for his first novel, Carrie (as you know if you've read On Writing, which you should). He used to keep them piled on a nail in his bedroom. King was told, about Carrie, "We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell." (HA! Can you imagine someone saying this today. Yeah. Right.)
• John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was rejected by 30 agents and 15 publishers.
• Judy Blume says she received nothing but rejections for two years straight before finally becoming a published author. 
• Dr. Seuss's first book was rejected 24 times.
• Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received more than 30 rejections.
• The first Chicken Soup for the Soul title received 33 "nos" before it finally got a yes. 
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by 14 publishers. Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, only took it on at the request of the CEO’s eight-year old daughter, who begged her father to print the book. 
• So many publishers rejected The Tale of Peter Rabbit that Beatrix Potter published it herself.
• Thirty-eight publishers rejected Gone With the Wind before it finally sold, went on to win the Pulitzer, and was adapted into an Academy Award winning movie.
• The classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig was rejected 121 times. It went on to sell 4 million copies.

So the next time you get a rejection (or are prematurely and irrationally worried about one, like me) just remember - you're not the only one.

Published or soon-to-be published authors that happen to stumble over here, feel free to add your stats, if you want to discuss them, in the comments, and I can add them to the post! Or if you happen to know the stat of a famous author I left out.

It's All in How You Look at It

I went on a looooooong motorcycle ride with the hubs today. Like probably too long. And since I haven't slept much in the past few days, there was a brief moment on our ride home when I honestly thought I was going to fall asleep on the back of the motorcycle. Which would have been a disaster. But before all that, we drove to Brooksville, FL, which...uh, WOW. I didn't even know they made houses like that in Florida. Seriously, people. There were COWS. And HORSES. And wide, open FIELDS!!!

So hubs and I started doing what we I love to do whenever we're in the presence of houses that actually have decent square footage and backyards: pretend like we could actually afford them and discuss which ones we like best. We were driving along a particularly windy path, and in between two houses (one, a lovely two-story country home with wraparound porch, the other a stucco mini-mansion with a long palm-lined driveway) was an empty lot. Well, not exactly empty. It had a couple mounds of dirt in it, and a mailbox at the end of the driveway, so I assumed it was a construction site. But then hubs turned around and said, "Cool! A BMX track!"

Me: "Uh, that's not a BMX track."
Hubs: "Yeah it is!"
Me: "No, it's not! It's a construction site! Those are just piles of dirt!"
Hubs: *Laughs his face off* "No, that's a BMX track. It's organized a certain way. You just can't see it because you're not a boy."

Huh.

I can't see it, because I'm not a boy.

What looked to me like this:

Looked to my husband like this:

We were riding with his dad, otherwise I probably would have done the obnoxious girl thing and made him turn around. (Although, since he doesn't read the blog, I can comfortably admit that searching for pictures of BMX tracks made me realize he might have been right...maybe.) But what he said got me thinking about perception, and of course, how perception can affect your writing and reading.

How many times have you read a book that everyone LOVED, it just wasn't for you? I can think of at least two strong examples of this in my life. But just because I didn't like the book doesn't mean it's awful (as awesome as I am.) And when people don't enjoy my favorite books, I try to let it slide. The things they've experienced in their lives, or just their general preferences (i.e., liking BMX vs. not being sure why someone would want to ride a tiny bicycle) affect their perception of a book. And that's totally OK. And one day, when (not if - it's all about positive thinking here) I get published, there will be people - multiple people, probably - who don't like my book. And that's OK too.

I don't think there are many times when writers send something off to a crit partner thinking it's totally perfect. But the funny thing is, a crit partner (or a beta reader) might look at something you wrote and have a totally different take on it. That is, in fact, why you have them. So you might have a scene you love and think makes perfect sense, and they'll write, "OMGWTFBBQ?????" in the margins, letting you know you are totally out of your mind. (Hopefully they'll also give a little more explanation as to why you are out of your mind.) On the flip side, you might have a scene that you think is not actually working, and it turns out it is. Or maybe it just needed someone else's perspective - a little chat session or a few emails exchanged with some of your writing buddies, and before you know it your villain has a back story, and your subplot fits in perfectly with the rest of your novel. You just needed someone else to see your pile of dirt as a BMX track.

Even when you're querying, it's all about perception. We've all heard stories about how a book might get rejected by one agent, only to be picked up by another the next day. Just because one agent (or publishing house) doesn't like what you've got going on doesn't mean that there isn't another one who will see that your WIP is so not a pile of dirt...obviously.

BONUS!

How could I mention my hubs, his motorcycle, and my pink helmet (oh, did I not mention that? Well, I have a motorcycle helmet. And it's pink. It's awesome.) without sharing one of these awesome pictures from the mini-engagement photo session we did with one of my best friends, photographer Elizabeth Atkins? There's an even better one but we're KISSING in it, and no one wants to see that...

Don't Let the Crippling Fear of Rejection Stop You!

Just another reminder that I've got a contest going on! Win a signed copy of The Given Day by Dennis Lehane or The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve! Or, if you're in the mood for some YA, check out this contest by the Undercover Book Lover for Some Girls Are, All Unquiet Things, and Before I Fall, or this contest by Steph Su Reads for some incredible YA ARCs, including Linger; Will Grayson, Will Grayson; and Sisters Red. (See, even when I give away adult books, I still link to the awesome YA giveaways.)

Author friends, I'm here today to tell you the story of a woman I met last week at my writing conference. Although I'm not yet ready to query, a lot of my readers are preparing to enter the fray. And even if you're not, I know you think about querying all the time (come on, even I do it - I have a query letter written already, even though I know it's useless right now, and pretty terrible.) I wanted to share this woman's story with you as a great lesson of what not to do when you query. This woman told me a story that I literally could not believe, and I knew I had to share it with you. To protect the innocent, I'll call her Rita. (I've been making my way through Dexter lately. I considered calling her the Ice Truck Killer or the Bay Harbor Butcher, but that would color the already unflattering story against her.)

Rita is an older author - I don't know her exact age, but definitely over 50. A few years ago she attended the same conference, and the agent who spoke invited everyone in attendance to query him, even though he wasn't really taking on new clients. We'll call this agent Marcus. (I'm also rereading Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty. MarcusFlutieMarcusFlutieMarcusFlutie)

Rita had a finished manuscript that she was very excited about and had been shopping around to a few agents. She is in the "query-one-at-a-time" camp, and had received rejections from three or four agents so far (with a few partial requests). (The one-agent-at-a-time method of querying vs. the multiple submissions querying is a topic for another post altogether, but I thought her method was a bit counterproductive in the first place. Some busy agents take months to get through their slush piles, and the whole time you're just sitting on your manuscript? Agents expect you to be doing simultaneous submissions - they just don't want to know about it.) So with Marcus's invitation, she decided to try her luck with him.

She wrote a professional query letter, personalizing it to include his invitation to all authors in attendance at the conference. After a few weeks, she got a request (I wasn't clear if the request was for a partial or a full). She immediately sent her manuscript over. Months and months went by and she hadn't heard anything. She became dejected. She didn't understand; why wasn't Marcus letting her know what he thought? Months turned into two years, and when I met her, she was still waiting to hear back from Marcus. I asked if she had tried to query other agents, or even called Marcus to find out what he thought, and she said no - she was too heartbroken.

To be honest, I think this whole situation was a bit melodramtic. And I'd like to think that most of my readers would know that if more than a few months go by and you don't hear from an agent, you should either follow-up or assume no answer = rejection and move on. Then again, before meeting Rita, I had assumed every writer thought this way. Apparently not. Her novel - which sounds brilliant, and I know she must be a decent writer because she won a best-of-the-workshop award - has been sitting in a drawer for years, all because she was too upset by a single non-response.

Toughen up!! Don't let this happen to you! I think the best way to go into the query wars is to have a plan of attack for how you're going to handle rejections and nonresponses. How long will you let go by before you call up the agent and ask about the status of the full manuscript they requested? (I've heard from multiple agents that this is totally acceptable, though the time frame varies per agent. Do your research.) How are you going to react when someone sends you a form rejection, or worse, ignores you completely?

My plan? I'm going to print every single rejection, so that when I do get accepted, I can laugh in the faces of everyone who said no!! Mwahahaha!!!!!!!! (OK, the laugh in their faces part isn't true, but the printing thing definitely is.)

Fortunately, the story with Rita and Marcus does have a sort-of happy ending. Marcus was present at the conference again this year, so Rita finally got up the nerve to ask him what happened. Of course, since her manuscript had been on his desk so many years ago, he didn't recall it specifically, but he assured her that his agency had a very specific system set in place for this kind of thing, and that she probably got an email response which may have gone to her Spam box or gotten otherwise lost in the email. (Another word of caution - have a dedicated query email, and/or make sure every agent you query is in your address book so they don't wind up in Spam!) Rita ended up with a bit of egg on her face, but may just query again after all. And Marcus told us all to follow-up and not be so afraid of rejection.