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.

Sunday Funday (38)

Happy Sunday! Every Sunday, I feature some helpful links from around the blogging world/Internet. We have a lot of links this week, so I could ramble a bit like I usually do, but I think it would be better to just get down to it! Here are some of the best links I found this week. (Feel free to add your own in the comments!)

So you all might know my friend Jessica Love. She describes herself as tall, blond, and pretty sarcastic. All of which are totally accurate. She is also awesome. Here is a picture of Jessica and I at SCBWI-LA.

If you met me there, chances are good that you met her, too, because we were doing the "stick together like clueless noobs" routine.  Well Jessica started a writing blog, which is awesome because now in addition to stalking her on Twitter, sending her 12 emails a day, and reading her fabulous YA review blog, I can now also read her writing blog. And you should too.

Amna from Girl in Between is working on a collaborative project about WHY WE WRITE. She is awesome and has entertained me on multiple occasions. So you should help her out. 

Wondering how to start a novel? Maggie Stiefvater shares her 7 Super Sekrit Steps. (OK, they're not really secret, but I thought that sounded fun.)

Kate Hart, in a follow-up to her awesome agent story, talks about some of the things you should ask an agent.

Writer Ian Hocking discloses why, after years of working with his agent and sending multiple novels out on sub, he's decided to retire from writing. (Not really an inspiring post, but certainly enlightening.)

Literary agent Mary Kole, who runs the awesome blog KidLit, talks about mature/sarcastic/snarky voice in YA - and when not to use it.

Speaking of KidLit...ever wonder about Slush Pile fatigue? Do agents just pull out some queries because the other queries around them suck so much that the queries they pulled are better by comparison? Find out here.

Your minor characters are just as important as your major characters, but sometimes - especially in the first draft - they fall flat. Wondering how to make your minor characters shine? Check out these 5 steps to creating dazzling minor characters, from WordPlay.

Working on your final polish and seeing a lot of the same words? How about taking a look at this list of synonyms for commonly used words and seeing if you can replace a few of those repeats. 

There are two great posts on writer envy this week. One, from author Steph Bowe, (in a truly beautiful post) talks about how she doesn't really understand the envy. Another, a guest post over at Pimp My Novel, discusses how writer-envy is normal, and how even though we help each other we can all only go through the gate one at a time. Hm...

Having some plot troubles? Janice Hardy helps you figure them out by asking a few simple questions.

It might seem like, in the grand scheme of your huge novel, one sentence doesn't make a difference. But YA Highway sees it otherwise. (And it seems like these sentence strengthening posts are going to be a series, so, yay!) 

And finally...an epic contest from Emilia Plater! She's giving away critiques from agents, signed books, candy, and more! Check it out here. Or don't. Because I really want to win this one. So I think no one else should enter and that will just make me the winner. Done and done.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Can you believe how early in the day I posted this week? Get this - I actually scheduled this post in advance! It's a Sunday Funday miracle!

Is the #Queries Tag Really Good?

OK, so I've had this post in my "drafts" for a month and a half now, but when I saw Nathan Bransford post a similar question on his blog the other day, I decided it was time to let my thoughts on the topic out. Of course, since he beat me to it it looks like I'm copying him. Or maybe it's more timely now? Whatever.

Imagine this: You've started querying agents, and, like the diligent social networking guru you are, you start paying attention to the agents you're querying on Twitter like a hawk (which you were probably doing before you queried, but now that you've queried you really upped your game), and then you notice something that makes you stop in your tracks.

DreamAgent007: Next up: Great query! It's a mermaid-unicorn retelling of Hamlet! Just what I'm looking for. #queries

You get excited. You know that's YOUR query. How many other mermaid-unicorn Hamlet retellings can there be out there, and the timing is just about right. Your palms get sweaty. This could be it. Your BIG BREAK. Until you read the agent's next tweet:

DreamAgent007: Ugh. Remember that Hamlet mermaid-unicorn query I was excited about? The pages sucked. Pass. #queries

Can you imagine finding out your dream agent rejected you...over Twitter?

OK, I'll admit that example was WAY more specific than #queries (usually) gets. But I think the question is worth asking (and this is a different question than Nathan Bransford asked, which was really about 100% snarky websites, so I'm cool with it): is it fair to post any specific information about a query when the author doesn't know it could happen?

Writers are sensitive people. We are delicate flowers who often go a little bit crazy. We maybe think that word counts over 250,000 are justifiable, or that our not-so-original idea is actually WAY original.

OK, yes. The publishing industry is tough. And we need to get thicker skins. It's true. I'm not denying it. But is the best way to make that happen for us to be blind-sided on Twitter? (Particularly when some of the people doing #queries are interns who don't say where they intern, so there's not even a way to avoid showing up on that feed at all costs?) Yeah, it's true that no one else will know that the tweet was about you. But YOU will know.

Furthermore, writers are encouraged not to post anything about their rejection stats on their blogs or Twitter accounts. It's tacky, we're told (and I 100% agree. I'm sure I'll be ranting about this later.) And yet it's totally OK for someone in the industry to say, "I'm rejecting this query!" and give a little tidbit of what the book is about? It's totally possible - even likely - that no one else is paying attention, and that the tweet won't affect anything. But it's also possible - though much less likely - that someone else will see that and think, "OK, have to remember that DreamAgent007 hated that Hamlet mermaid thing. Don't even bother with the pages even if I like the query." Is that terribly likely? No. Is it possible? Yes. And that's what troubles me.

And here's the worst thing of all: the people who actually need to see the things that are being posted in the #queries tag probably aren't following the tag. Because if they were, they wouldn't have made those mistakes in the first place. If they were following the hashtag, they would how to properly format a query, or that addressing a letter to "Dear Agent" isn't OK, or that they probably should have had a few beta readers look over their work to make sure it was halfway decent before they started querying. So even though the idea behind #queries is good, and the people doing it really honestly do want to help (and I know they do, trust me - every person I've ever seen tweet a #queries tweet has the best intentions, I cannot stress that enough), I don't think they're reaching the people who would benefit most from the specific information they're giving out.

So, how can we improve the #queries tag? Let's not talk about personal queries anymore. I don't care if it's as simple as a word count or as complicated as a story premise. (Though it's really the story premise ones that kill me - many writers I know guard their premises with their lives.) Instead, let's open a dialogue. Invite writers to ask questions, like in #askagent, but only about queries. (QueryChat is great for this, but it's only been every other Wednesday night or so so far, so if you can't make that time period you're sort of out of luck.) Or instead amass a list of tips that will help writers, but don't attribute them to a specific query.

Yes, it's true that a bad example helps the point stick. But good advice sticks, too. Here are some tweets from the #queries hashtag that I think serve the purpose well, give a great piece of advice, but don't point out a specific query or writer.

@LauraKreitzer FYI: Don't resubmit a query letter or manuscript within a WEEK. That's insane. Give it at least 6 months with major editing. #queries
(Was this probably in response to something that really happened? Yes. But I feel OK about it because it isn't presented that way.)

@WeronikaJanczuk I've been reading #queries for a while and two partial requests so far! That's a lot for one day.

@CA_Marshall @jenduffey @authorjdbrown Format it as plain text, most query reading programs strip formatting. #queries (This was in response to a question about how to format the materials when asked to C&P everything into the body of the email. Great, helpful advice and a perfect example of what I think #queries should be about.)

OK, but here's what I want. I really do want to know what you think. I will admit I follow the #queries hashtag (and recently #queryslam), and do like reading what people have to say, and even seeing what gets rejected and what makes it through. So I'm totally a hypocrite. And I respect the agents and interns who work on the queries because man...that's a lot of work. BUT the thought that I could be querying and see something that makes it obvious that the query they're talking about is mine, then see PASS, and know that all of Twitter is thinking, "Yeah. That stupid writer should have known better and her book sounds LAME." kills me inside, and makes me wonder if it's really the right thing to do, since I didn't sign up to have hundreds, possibly thousands of writers on Twitter reading about my business. And that's what I think about.

Thoughts, readers?

Teenagers are More Successful Than Me

Let's talk about motivated teenagers.

When I was in high school, I thought I was a motivated teen.

I was president of the National Honor Society, vice president of the drama club, captain of the academic team, secretary of Youth in Government, and had a GPA higher than 4.0.

Apparently, being motivated = being a total dork.

I also watched a lot of TV, goofed off on the Internet (which was BRAND-NEW and SHINY and also slow because it was dial-up...ah, the bad old days...), played hours upon hours of Harvest Moon and Zelda on my N64, and cruised around Clearwater in Dave Mink's '88 Ford Whatever. (My memory isn't that good. This was like 10 years ago.)

Sometimes, when I look back at all those hours wasted goofing off, napping, doing nothing, I think, "You know, I could have gotten a head start on this whole novel-writing thing and been awesome and successful by now!" Then I remember the crap my 19-year-old self wrote and I want to smack myself upside the head with a blunt instrument, because no one, not even my blog readers, should be subjected to that (unless it's for entertainment, and snarky comments are included.)

I think it's better that I waited until I was an (im)mature adult before I started taking my writing seriously. Fortunately for the universe, book publishing, and current teenagers, not all teenagers suck as bad as I did. In fact, some of them are actually talented.

Last week, I read The DUFF by Kody Keplinger. The book has a frank discussion of sex, one that I think teens will relate really well to and appreciate (and will probably make adults across the country call for the book to be thrown out of homes and libraries alike). And the voice is dead-on and honest. I think this is one thing that teen authors have that adults authors don't. When I attended SCBWI-LA, many of the workshop sessions suggested interviewing teenagers to get a good hold on voice or emotions. Teen authors can totally bypass that step because, well, they are teens. They have that voice and emotion, and their friends talk to them constantly about their own feelings (or don't, and hey, that's a relevant character trait, too.) They don't have to visit high school because they're in high school. In fact, many of the authors below admit that events in their high schools inspired the works that eventually got them published.

Here are some examples of some of those talented writers who just happened to have been in high school when they published their first books:

The aforementioned Kody Keplinger, who wrote The DUFF when she was a senior in high school.

Steph Bowe, who landed super agent Ginger Clark at the age of 15.

Though he's older than me, Christopher Paolini penned the first book in the Inheritance Cycle - Eragon - when he was just 15. (I will note that he might be a bad example, because the book was first published by his parent's company. However, when Carl Hiaasen's stepson found the book and loved it, Hiaasen brought the book to Knopf and Eragon saw its second print run before Paolini's 19th birthday. So, still a success story, just not by the traditional formula.)   

Hannah Moskowitz, who has a fantastic blog and published Break when she was 18 or so. What's more, she's got three more books coming out: Invincible Summer (April 2011), The Animals Were Gone (Spring 2012), and the MG Zombie Tag (Fall 2011).

And I have to include S.E. Hinton. Even though she's not a teen anymore, her classic The Outsiders is taught in schools, and well-known by even people who don't read a lot. And she was 17 when she started writing it.

OK, but here's the thing - even though these writers are younger in age (except for Hinton, obvs), I don't think any of them are short on talent. I'm sure some of them don't appreciate having their age pointed out at every turn (in fact, I know one in particular is looking forward to leaving her teens behind so she can just be an author-author instead of a teen-author), but I don't think the fact that these individuals were published when they were teen-aged means that they wouldn't have been published had they been middle-aged. Many of them probably didn't even mention their age in their query letters, which was probably smart - let the writing speak for itself.

I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for these young go-getters. Justine Larbelastier posited that anything younger than 30 was still very young to be a published author. So I guess I still have four years and four months to prove that I'm not a total slacker.

As for authors who are teen-aged? Well, I guess they're just getting a head start.

Happy Mockingjay Day!

Woohoo! It's here! It's here!

It's a day that's been on my calendar for so long that I marked it in pencil, knowing that the publishing world is often fickle (read: hoping they would move the date up), and all it says is "3rd HG release!" because the title wasn't even announced yet! And now it's here and I'm super pumped!!!

I have a pre-ordered copy coming my way, courtesy of one Ms. Frankie Diane Mallis, but I have no idea if it will get here today or tomorrow or next week sometime. I'm giving it until I get home from work, since I can't really read until then anyway, then I'm caving and buying a copy. I figure I can donate the extra copy to orphaned children or my teacher-friend's classroom or the library or host a giveaway or something. I'll find a place for it. Because I think the world could use a little more Mockingjay.

HEY! Speaking of MORE MOCKINGJAY! Have you seen this video of Suzanne Collins reading from the first chapter?


OMG THAT LAST SENTENCE GIVES ME CHILLS. CHILLS, PEOPLE.  

Happy reading everyone! (And if you're not reading Mockingjay I assume it's because your eyes have been ripped out of your head by mutations. You should really get that fixed so you can read the series. Like, yesterday. You can thank me when you're done.)

Suggested Activities for the Waiting Period

Many of us have been there. You've finished your latest round of revisions (for me, it's round five...maybe six? Possibly seven? Who can keep track anymore.) and have fired off emails to some readers to get that all-important feedback. Is your WIP awesome? Does it suck? Does it make any sense AT ALL? Will you have to rewrite that make-out scene YET AGAIN? (Are you intentionally failing miserably at writing it in the first place because you love writing make-out scenes so much? Hm...)

Of course, your readers have lives (stupid them) and they won't be able to get back to you overnight. I mean, sure, it should be quick and painless to provide feedback on a 60,000 word document, but not everyone has perfected the art of speed reading. So while you sit on tenderhooks waiting for the feedback so you can dive back into revisions, here are some activities you can participate in that might be more enjoyable then waiting for those crit comments (I also believe these activities will work well when you're waiting to hear back about MS requests from agents.)

1. Deep-sea fishing. OK, so you don't know anything about fishing. And you get a little bit seasick. But there's no email in the ocean, so it will prevent you from obsessively checking your email while you wait for those all-important comments. Also, you might just catch dinner! And then you can cook it! Deboning fish is hard and messy, cooking it can be time consuming if you want it to be, and eating it is yummy. Sounds like a great, time-wasting way to spend an evening!
2. Ostrich riding. Apparently, this is a real activity. One which you must train for vigorously, then fly to Africa to compete in. Sounds like the perfect time-killer to me!
3.  Wallow in self-doubt and loathing. This seems to be the perfect activity of choice for writers (and, indeed, any artist) waiting to get feedback or news of any kind. Sister activities include binge drinking, not bathing, not eating (see also: binge eating), and collapsing in on oneself like a dying star. 
4. Start a Twitter account dedicated to Bieber. Because there aren't enough of them already, and because paying him his due homage will obviously take up all of your time.
5. Bungee jumping and/or sky-diving. While neither of these activities will last longer than an afternoon, they're both moderately dangerous and may even result in injury that could lay you up for a few weeks - just enough time to get the feedback you've been waiting for. Will you take the risk?

OK, chances are good that you might not be interested in those activities. So you might opt to just do some CP reading of your own, read a book (For example, it's really convenient if you time the sending of your WIP with the most highly anticipated book release since Deathly Hallows....yeah, I didn't get into Twilight until after Breaking Dawn came out, and I'm kind of glad because I would have been disappointed by that conclusion.), or watch Veronica Mars. But really, are any of those as exciting/awesome as riding an ostrich?

I think not.

Alright, I admit this post was kind of silly/pointless. But no one's really reading it anyway, and my mind is so NOT on the blog today. We're all too consumed with MOCKINGJAY FEVER that we can hardly stand it. THE ANTICIPATION, PEOPLE. IT KILLS.

Sunday Funday (37)

Happy Sunday!! It's been a busy week at the Trese household. I've been revising a TON (hence the lack of updates - oops!) and doing some CP reading. I also got to go back to WWoHP this week with my friend Crystal, and it was just as amazing as the first time! (Sidenote: I am an annual pass holder, so all of you blogging friends who are making the trip down to Orlando sometime in the next year should totally give me a buzz.) 

But enough about me. Let's talk about the other great things that have been going on in the blogging world!

Amna from Girl in Between had a whole post dedicated to awesome, awful, and awfully awesome rejections.


HEY! MOCKINGJAY is only TWO DAYS AWAY!!!! Forever Young Adult celebrated by suggesting some great HG merch (and an HG drinking game). Amna, on the other hand, traded hilarious texts with her cousin, a first-time HG reader, and then posted them on her blog for all the world to enjoy.

Wondering how to write a novel? Nathan Bransford explains.

OK, so you've written the novel...now you need to edit it. (Knew you were forgetting something, huh?) Kiersten White's got you covered!

So, your novel is written, it's edited...time to move on to beta readers! Got YA? discusses how to be a better beta, while a group of bloggers led by Sarah Enni participated in a Battle of the Betas where they betaed online so you can see their process.

Pretty soon, you'll be ready to query! Kate Hart posted her agent story and it's amazing and inspirational - keep working and yours could be just as awesome.  

And if all of this sounds way too intimidating, you might want to start here, with some tips for getting the ball rolling.

Have you decided to give up? Still facing rejection? As it turns out, there are some perks to being unpublished, according to Query Tracker blog.

And finally...have you seen this video? Grammar School with Snooki. OMG IT'S AWESOME AND MAKES ME LOVE JOHN GREEN EVEN MORE. Watch it. Love it. (Actually, watch pretty much all of the VlogBrothers videos, because they are all awesome.

Have a great week everyone!