Some thoughts on Rejection and other catch up stuffs.

[erastes]

Been Missing in Action. Sorry about that, I've been zombie-fied and feeling hugely sorry for myself. Have given self huge kick up arse.

It's gone very cold again. Three degrees and IT'S SNOWING. Brrrr.

Some thoughts on rejection:

[Unknown site tag]If something is easy, generally--they say--it's not worth doing.  I can't actually agree with that because eating delicious food is easy, riding a horse is easy (for me) and I love doing both of those, but writing is not easy. Even for those who find the actual putting words on a page easier than many--and I'm talking about the people who can knock out 250,000 words a year with almost no effort, who can write 10,000 words in an evening--even those people struggle with some aspect of the publishing business.

Everyone finds something difficult--whether it's naming the book, developing plot or character, doing the blurb, writing a synopsis, writing a query letter, dealing with rejection.

And it's this last one I want to discuss. REJECTION.

It's not a nice word, and it's laden with so many bad associations. Rejection at school, disappointment from parents and siblings, job application failures, relationship disasters.  The list above (and probably many more) are situations which are unavoidable in life--so why on earth would anyone deliberately set themselves up for More Of The Same by becoming a writer and putting oneself through the seemingly masochist displeasure of rejection?

Who knows. Possibly that the joy of being chosen by a publisher, and having that publisher and an editor who really "get" you and your work is worth all the blood sweat and tears. 

And it is worth it. Believe me.  To quote the film Galaxy Quest - "Never Give Up, Never Surrender."

What I never understand--and Icome across people like this almost on a weekly basis--are those who run off to self publishing, SIMPLY because they've been rejected once or twice.  

Don't get me wrong--I have no down on self-publishing. Some people have been very successful doing this (Christopher Paolini, WA Hoffman and others) - but in the former case he had a hell of a lot of expertise and support and money in his parents, and in the latter case the size of the saga and the characters have grabbed the imagination. Like Paolini, too, some-like Ann Herendeen--have been lucky enough to have their sub published book picked up by a major publisher. But these cases are rare--as rare as working in a cocktail bar and Stephen Speilberg discovering you.

But in general, self publishing--while giving you the majority of the profits and complete editorial control (not always a good thing) won't get you the sales or notice that you might think your book deserves.

So my advice is--KEEP GOING.  If you get rejected; take it on the chin. Search the internet and find all those other cases of famous people who were rejected many many times.

http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm

Grow a thicker skin--because rejection will do that, and in this business you need one. Believe you me,rejection never gets easy--but it gets EASIER.

Well I think that's enough right now--I'll go into how to react to rejection at another time, perhaps.

Love this art from this guy.http://www.keithrocco.com/

and this is astill from the Lily Black bear cam – you can just see the cub on the bottom right. (click both for larger)

Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of easy things VERY worth doing. I'm about to do one of them, which is snuggle my little girl.

Cooking, making love, reading, writing, all easy, all worth doing.

But rejection...damn. I got one last week, made suggestions to deal with the problems, which only seem to worsen it.
*sigh* Ellora's Cave is not ready for poly. They still see it as cheating.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I saw your rejection notes - I really felt for you- however they did give you quite comprehensive reasons. It probably will sell to Loose ID or someone else, surely? I noticed Amber does a lot of menagey stuff.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The problem is, I can't! The book is a sequel to a recent release there. It stands alone, but I don't like spreading a series over different publishers.

And I don't want it to be a menage. It's poly. Adlai has his wife and lover. They are free to have other lovers, with the only stipulation being that all of the wife's kids have to be his. Nathaniel doesn't like women enough to make this a menage.

*sigh* I may just wait until the book comes out of contract (2018, most likely) and do it then.

*double sigh* It didn't sell well enough at Torquere to merit finishing the sequel. Now, it's selling, but where the sequel needs to go is a place most women readers don't want to go. They want it all tied up in a nice, monogamous happy ending with rainbows, hugs and puppies.

I think I'm going to write on the asexual, alcoholic PI. There a happy ending means she gets her perp and goes on a date with a bottle of Captain Morgan for three days

[erastes.livejournal.com]

There's a nice piratey video on my LJ now that I dedicate to you to cheer you up.

xxx

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

Try either Loose Id--the publisher I'm with, they get poly--or Siren who has an all poly line of books, 'Siren Polyamore'.