The Daily Rejection

carefulwithwords said:

AND ANOTHER THING: When practically the FIRST line of my query specifies my one of the dual narrators as 13 and CLEARLY indicates that it is an adult novel, Why would you request that I go through the expense and time of sending you a SNAIL MAIL partial if you don't think editors want to buy books with children protags?!!!?

This guy owes me $16.

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I hear you. I snailmailed a full to an agent who requested it off my query. She immediately told me my book was too long, so she didn't read it. Er, my word count was in the query, woman. Indeed, you told me to send a hard copy because you didn't want to read anything that long on your computer.

Hathor said:

I hear you. I snailmailed a full to an agent who requested it off my query. She immediately told me my book was too long, so she didn't read it. Er, my word count was in the query, woman. Indeed, you told me to send a hard copy because you didn't want to read anything that long on your computer.

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:::facepalm::::

Wow, Careful, Hathor. I totally feel your pain. And now I'm going to shut my email program off so i don't hear anything like that today.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/


All right, my darlings, read the above article. Contains adult language.

careful and Hathor, sorry and whisky. Oh, and Commander Please!

Polly

Stop distracting me, Polly. I'm trying to write a sequel over here.

It will help! Also have noticed that Louisa May Alcott used a shitload of commas *runs away*,,,,,,,,,

pollymilton said:

It will help! Also have noticed that Louisa May Alcott used a shitload of commas *runs away*,,,,,,,,,

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I bet she used them correctly. *ducks and hides*

I like commas. I also love semicolons, colons, and the occasional exclamation point. Sometimes, I even go for an interrobang. (I'm a naughty girl.)

Thanks for the rep point, Polly. Next time add a comment, preferrably one with lots of commas

Carleree- you're on a roll!

Carleree said:

How much whiskey did you have, Hathor?

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None yet today. I'm just getting punchy trying to excise words from my timeless prose because of an industry rule of thumb. The song "Another One Bites the Dust" keeps playing through my mind.

I'm down to 107,000 words, which amazes me. And I'm still going. A few words each page add up.

It takes so much concentration to notice things. Like I'd written "she walked out the door." I took out "the door," because where the hell else would she walk out -- the window? "I slipped the shoes on my feet." As opposed to...my ears?

So it goes.

Nada. I've still got 11 subs out there to publishers and not one of them has responded. This used to be the case with agent subs, but now I'm really hearing crickets from the press side, like at no other time in my writing history. WTF is up? Why this turn? It's got me gob-smacked and flabber-gasted.

I keep revisiting my "sent" file, just to make I did, indeed, send out these fulls and partials. I have a few queries that have been out there for four months and longer.

Gak.

Tri

Makes you wonder if there are fewer places to submit, fewer editors at those places, and/or more work being submitted.

Waiting is indeed "gak"-worthy.

Everybody's so quiet. What's going on with everyone?

I'm still working on my incredible shrinking book. I keep thinking I've trimmed it as much as I can. Then I reread just to make sure things still make sense in terms of grammar and plot and I find something else I don't actually need.

And then I think I'm only a few hundred words from being able to round to a lower number, so I become even more ruthless.

Don't shrink it into a short story! Unless it should be a short story...

Sydneyd said:

Don't shrink it into a short story! Unless it should be a short story...

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Let's see:

Girl meets hunky boy. Girl solves a mystery and manages not to die in the process. Girl thinks she's lost the hunky boy, but maybe not. [sequel alert]

How's that?

It drew me in! Erase what you have, and replace it with those three sentences

Skiing, laundry, dishes, childrearing. No writing. Something's wrong here.

Sydneyd said:

It drew me in! Erase what you have, and replace it with those three sentences

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And this could also be my query, my synopsis, and my elevator pitch.

Hathor said:

And this could also be my query, my synopsis, and my elevator pitch.

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Nope, come to think of it. It would be my synopsis. My query and elevator pitch need a hook. So -- girl meets hunky boy while investigating a mystery. Now what?

Hathor said:

Nope, come to think of it. It would be my synopsis. My query and elevator pitch need a hook. So -- girl meets hunky boy while investigating a mystery. Now what?

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Boy reveals he's actually a girl, girl reveals she's actually a boy. Everyone lives happily ever after.

I don't know if it's because of recent sales rank spikes or what, but I've had three major interviews in the past 10 days for Planet Janitor. This is getting fun.

But...no news on the subbed partials and fulls. Crickets, once again there.

I'm kind of pining for a rejection. Now ain't that somethin'?

Tri--red-shifting

Carleree said:

How much whiskey did you have, Hathor?

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yeah thanks but I didn't need that coming up on my search engine... not funny.
Again, happy for you Carleree!

Nova Odyssey said:

yeah thanks but I didn't need that coming up on my search engine... not funny.

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Huh? I don't understand.

I'm not sure if that was you Hathor. You might want to check your computer for viruses if that 'nakd' pic you posted was not intentional.