The Daily Rejection

Hate waiting, myself. I guess all this is teaching me to handle that better.

That editor said he'd get to my work in one or two weeks. Now it's two weeks, two days and I can't keep my eyes off my email. (In all fairness, he said that before knowing how long my chapters are in the NF. Three of its chapters make up a third of the book.)

I want to start querying the fiction. But selling the NF would be worth mentioning in the query...

Nope, I can't think about this. I need to keep myself busy, visualizing Carleree "knee-walking drunk" (must be a Canadian thing) and dancing about, shouting obscene rap songs. ? ? ? ?

Here's hoping my husband doesn't know how to upload videos to youtube

I'm hoping he does...

Can I just say how absolutely valuable this place is to me? Thank you, I will say it.

This place is very valuable to me.

P.

oh wow Carleree. that's one super edit you must have done on the query, or finally you got the right agent to query. Exciting!

Nova Odyssey said:

oh wow Carleree. that's one super edit you must have done on the query, or finally you got the right agent to query. Exciting!

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I think a little of both. Polly helped me tweak it. Thanks Polly.

It's funny that the agents who are biting are the ones I was sure would insta-reject me. Goes to show how much I know about picking agents.

no I didn't. SHE wrote it.

I'm pretty sure your suggestions helped a lot.

CARLEREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peggy Blair said:

CARLEREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Looks like you are just as shocked as I am, Peggy.

Got two rejections one after the other, felt great because that meant I could resend them out. Both stories got the AW stamp of approval and another critique website... so I'm hoping they get picked up. At least I'm getting "Not right for this magazine" comments rather than the standard form rejection of "You failed, don't try again." <--joking ^.~

Rachel, I admire your positivity. Rah

What other critique site did you use?

Rachel Udin said:

Got two rejections one after the other, felt great because that meant I could resend them out. Both stories got the AW stamp of approval and another critique website... so I'm hoping they get picked up. At least I'm getting "Not right for this magazine" comments rather than the standard form rejection of "You failed, don't try again." <--joking ^.~

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I love your attitude. I wish I handled rejection as well as you. Keep at it; only the strong survive.

Another bad writing link to make you feel better about your own work.

http://videosift.com/video/Lunar-Lando-IV-Rogue-Commies-Rising

This time in audiobook form, with all typos and bad grammar included.

My eyes! My eyes!

I admit I could only stand it for a little over two minutes. A nonnative speaker of English, perhaps? It seems that words were spelled the way someone heard them.

It reminds me of some years ago when my daughter went to a fencing camp. The coach, from Hungary originally, advised everyone to be sure to bring their own tao.

Meh, another rejection. Today I don't care

Hello! I'm catching up around here after a couple of weeks away in the Great White North. Sounds like things are cooking for y'all.

I've got fingers crossed for everyone in the ABNA contest!

Carleree, congrats on the fantastic full request!

Polly, good luck with your query contest! It sounds like a great book, and I can imagine that query was very tough to write. It sounds compelling to me, as does the opening.

Sorry to read about the rejections that have come in. Boo hiss.

I'm STILL not ready to query. I hardly did anything while I was away -- too much tempting snow, plus I got sick, threw my pelvis out and got dangerously close to bedbugs. Eventful trip! Am diving back in today. My 2nd beta reader, BF, says chapter 8 doesn't arc enough, and I unfortunately agree with him. In working through that issue, I'm also seeing some other research/fact-checking I realize I need to do.

On that note, are there any Canucksters out there with some basic knowledge of First Nations status definitions and how related compensation works and how this worked in the late 1980s/90s? If so, I'd be most grateful if you could message me.

Good luck, everyone!!

Hey Quick! Hope your pelvis (oouch even typing that) is better - were you skiing? Whistler?

Take your time, and thanks for the kind words. Didn't pass round in contest, but made some fun contacts and that's the bigger issue for me.

https://twitter.com/#!/MrsTomSauter

Quickbread said:

On that note, are there any Canucksters out there with some basic knowledge of First Nations status definitions and how related compensation works and how this worked in the late 1980s/90s? If so, I'd be most grateful if you could message me.

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Good luck with that. Each group which has an agreement has different terms it seems, and the rules governing those without an agreement are a mishmash of old and new. They're thinking about overhauling the Indian Act entirely right now because it's such a mess.

Best I can say is start here http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100010002

All the info you seek is there if you have the patience to find it.

Another R today. This one suggested I visit the query shark. Umm, listen agent lady, I've got two other agents who disagree with your assessment of my kickass query letter.

Carleree said:

Another R today. This one suggested I visit the query shark. Umm, listen agent lady, I've got two other agents who disagree with your assessment of my kickass query letter.

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In my time of researching agents I have heard of one the mentions the query shark in all of her/his rejection letters. To be helpful more than mean I believe. I'd check on querytracker before taking it too personally.

And, I'm sorry.

Sydney, It was definitely a form. But she highlighted that line for me. Thoughtful of her, no?

I'm not upset at all. I'm used to rejection. I just thought it was funny to get something like that after the big week I've had.

Thanks for the hug. One can't have too many hugs

Carleree said:

Another R today. This one suggested I visit the query shark. Umm, listen agent lady, I've got two other agents who disagree with your assessment of my kickass query letter.

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I've read through the archives of Query Shark and am slowly working through Miss Snark. Read a number of other sites, too. It seems that, in some cases, people disagree about what makes a query work and if any particular example does.

Folks want voice, motivation, characterization (showing, not telling -- so avoid those adjectives!), and an idea of plot -- all while avoiding cliches and staying very brief. Ack.

Is this the agent's form reject?

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I'm still trying to figure out word count. I've seen people adamant that it is pages times 250, because folks want to know how long the book will be. Others insist that it is actual number of words. Thing is, the page method gives me 100,000 words, and my actual word count (according to Word, anyway) is 116,500. The latter might cause automatic rejection.

Then, there are the folks who say not to include word count, because the only time it has an effect, the effect is a negative one.

So, do I pick the folks I want to believe (100,000 words or no mention), tough it out with 116,500, or go through my manuscript and try to cut? My book used to be shorter, but betas wanted more explanation of this and that. Sigh. I'm not even sure how much I can trim. I went through it earlier and cut 10,000 words. Much more is going to hurt.

I've found people can't even agree upon the standard place for page numbers. How to indicate italics. One or two spaces after a period. And on and on.

Okay, rant over. Carry on.

Hathor,

It was a form rejection.

I'd go with your gut on the word count. I use the Microsoft Word counter, but you can say 110k-which it almost is.

And I'd cut if I could. But that's me. I like to keep my word count to a minimum. Your style of writing may be very different than mine though. At some point you have to trust yourself.

Hathor said:

I've found people can't even agree upon the standard place for page numbers. How to indicate italics. One or two spaces after a period. And on and on.

Okay, rant over. Carry on.

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I've always heard top right for page numbers.

Italics can be indicated either by italics or underlines. In the old days when print copies were used extensively they preferred underlines because italics were often missed by the typesetters. Now it's all digital it really doesn't matter either way. I use underlines and I've never had a complaint.

One space after a period.

Where I get in trouble is with ellipses. I don't really do them in the standard way, but it always looks wrong to me when I do it in the correct manner. The way I use is unusual, but not completely unknown. I use ellipses a lot so it's fairly important to me.