The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

That's a cute kookaburra picture, Tamlyn! It's a shame they're loud, though. Don't their loud noises attract predators who might harm them?

AcaciaNeem said:

...Perseverance and keeping the faith is key-- we don't know what will work, and when. I so get all the frustration in this thread, but as you say, the spark could come at any time, so we have to be ready and open.

The idea is to keep the big picture in mind: we're going to keep writing books for a long time, and these are our first/ first few books. We need to find the groove where we fit, and stay creative and positive as we do it. The more frustrated and angry we are, the lower we bring our energy, which is not going to help at all.

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Yes. A few weeks ago, after feeling fed up and tired of receiving rejections, I thought that perhaps I should quit writing and earn a degree in a different field. I thought that my work was being rejected because I lacked the skills I needed to write as well as other published writers with English degrees. I was ready to abandon writing stories and try to pursue something else.

So, I went out exercising for over a couple of hours. That night, I received an email saying that one of my short stories was accepted for an anthology; I was expecting it to be another rejection, and when it wasn't, I felt shock and disbelief. I'd originally written it as a poem, which had been rejected several times already by other literary magazines; so, this one time, several months ago, I decided to change it into a prose story and deleted a couple of lines.

So, yes. This is proof, like others have said, that this industry is subjective, and that, if you like your work and keep sending it out, there might be one person who finally likes it and accepts it.

novicewriter said:

That's a cute kookaburra picture, Tamlyn! It's a shame they're loud, though. Don't their loud noises attract predators who might harm them?

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Kookaburras are large, well-equipped, bolshie predators. Not much will tackle them.

novicewriter said:

So, I went out exercising for over a couple of hours. That night, I received an email saying that one of my short stories was accepted for an anthology; I was expecting it to be another rejection, and when it wasn't, I felt shock and disbelief. I'd originally written it as a poem, which had been rejected several times already by other literary magazines; so, this one time, several months ago, I decided to change it into a prose story and deleted a couple of lines.

So, yes. This is proof, like others have said, that this industry is subjective, and that, if you like your work and keep sending it out, there might be one person who finally likes it and accepts it.

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Wonderful that you got that acceptance when you were not expecting it! That's half the reason I still keep sending short stories out---while the process for novels is slow, the one for stories is (ahem, somewhat) faster. We're all waiting for the one who "who finally likes it and accepts it!"

Thanks, everyone!

EMaree - You're on a roll! So exciting.

Penquin - Congrats on sending out your stuff! It's such a big leap for anyone!!

Acacia - Glad you found the article helpful. I will refer back to it often, I suspect!

novice - Congrats!! That's fantastic - and just when you most needed it! I didn't quite understand from your post; are you studying for an English degree? I have one and I doubt it's made any difference towards my goal of publishing fiction, but then again I didn't exactly pursue my degree with that in mind. Just remember, knowledge and skills from any background can be drawn upon to write interesting fiction, so I wouldn't sweat that. Although if your goal is an MFA in writing, it may help to have an English degree. Something to research, at any rate.

Yay, Emaree!

Grats on the story acceptance, novice

Kookaburras don't laugh all the time. They're normal birds really: they eat some things and some things eat them.

My most recent batch of queries has yielded fruit in the form of its first form rejection. I also CNRed one of the last few remaining open queries from my July batch.

Congrats, Novice!!!

RaggedEdge said:

And lastly, I've made it official with my agent!! (and no, as others have said, that does not roll off the tongue at all normally!) Suffice it to say I'm very pleased.

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Congrats, and good luck with submissions!

EMaree said:

Another full, AHHH. This is from an agent who's so well-known in the UK that I talked myself out of querying him multiple times, before finally being brave.

Full has been sent. Much excitement is happening, alongside the usual buckets of doubt. jfc this query trench run is going to kill me.

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Very promising! Best of luck with it.

novicewriter said:

So, I went out exercising for over a couple of hours. That night, I received an email saying that one of my short stories was accepted for an anthology; I was expecting it to be another rejection, and when it wasn't, I felt shock and disbelief.

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Congrats on the acceptance!

I woke up to two short story rejections today--one form, one personal. Going for a walk with a friend, but will find the next places to send when I get back.

RaggedEdge said:

novice - Congrats!! That's fantastic - and just when you most needed it! I didn't quite understand from your post; are you studying for an English degree? I have one and I doubt it's made any difference towards my goal of publishing fiction, but then again I didn't exactly pursue my degree with that in mind. Just remember, knowledge and skills from any background can be drawn upon to write interesting fiction, so I wouldn't sweat that. Although if your goal is an MFA in writing, it may help to have an English degree. Something to research, at any rate.

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Thanks! I'm not studying for an official English degree, but I've been an autodidact, reading others' work (almost all I've come across have English degrees and/or MFAs) studying the craft of writing, listening to other published writers' advice on how to write books, online.

Basically, I felt I needed to "catch up" to their level of craftsmanship in order to increase my chances of being published.

In my post, I meant that I didn't have a degree at all, but, after trying to teach myself writing and not having as much success, lately, having my work rejected, I was seriously, at that moment, thinking that I'd probably have to go to college and earn a degree in something else that I might be more skilled at than writing (something I didn't want to do, due to a degree costing several tens of thousands of dollars. That's why I'm trying to teach myself college level material through the internet or library books: it doesn't cost as much).

Because I was being rejected, recently, and not having much success, I thought my problem was my writing not being up to par, compared to other writers with English degrees. I didn't realize that my work might only be rejected due to others' subjectivity. I thought the rejection meant I wasn't a good writer and should try to pursue a different career, instead.

novicewriter said:

That night, I received an email saying that one of my short stories was accepted for an anthology; I was expecting it to be another rejection, and when it wasn't, I felt shock and disbelief..

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Yay yay yay!! Congrats!!

RaggedEdge said:

novice - Congrats!! That's fantastic - and just when you most needed it! I didn't quite understand from your post; are you studying for an English degree? I have one and I doubt it's made any difference towards my goal of publishing fiction, but then again I didn't exactly pursue my degree with that in mind.

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It’s funny you say that, because I just graduated with my English bachelor’s in April (eek!!) and had the opposite reaction. I was just telling a coworker today that I feel like studying English had a hugely positive effect on my writing, one I didn’t really plan on or anticipate. Granted, it didn’t have an effect on the publishing part—but I learned an insane amount from being forced to absorb so many texts in such a short time. The research component and learning to examine structure and tear things apart really helped, too. So while it didn’t directly influence the publishing thing, it did have a really big change on my actual writing.

I wasn't expecting to see a shift in my writing when I chose my major but it's neat that it seemed to have an unexpected but still pleasant side effect on my writing.

Marlys said:

Congrats on the acceptance!

I woke up to two short story rejections today--one form, one personal. Going for a walk with a friend, but will find the next places to send when I get back.

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Statistically speaking, that just puts you closer to a yes. Hang in there!

Another form rejection this afternoon, this one from a query 63 days old.

R cookies, underpope. A pity check would still cash like a regular one, eh?

You too, HistoryLvr. Congrats on jumping into the rejection pool!

Tamlyn, nice to see you here again. Glad you're feeling better, hope it stays that way.

RaggedEdge - Yay yay yay! May the submissions road be short and well-paved!

And more R cookies for Penguin_Factory, Collie & Marlys. Hang in there, everybody.

EMaree - Woot on the full!

novicewriter - Cheers on the acceptance!


I've had two days set aside for writing, and haven't gotten jack done. Cannot focus. Maybe I'll just smash my forehead on the keyboard....

The literary challenge I entered was supposed to end a few days ago (Trident Media Group), but they extended it by another 3 weeks? Makes me think they didn't find any of the entries suitable.

What I found interesting was that they requested information about your level formal education too.

So is it abnormal or a bad thing that now that I've written my synopsis, I want to completely scrap and rewrite my query? It might sound silly, but writing my synopsis made me realize about a plotline that might be more compelling in query form than my current one.

sockycat said:

So is it abnormal or a bad thing that now that I've written my synopsis, I want to completely scrap and rewrite my query? It might sound silly, but writing my synopsis made me realize about a plotline that might be more compelling in query form than my current one.

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No, that's very common. Synopses and queries often help improve each other--and sometimes the manuscript itself.

Marlys said:

No, that's very common. Synopses and queries often help improve each other--and sometimes the manuscript itself.

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Ugh. It's definitely one of those moments where I'm sitting here like "welp, I don't want to do this....even though I already know I need to." Back to QLH I go. *sob*

sockycat said:

So is it abnormal or a bad thing that now that I've written my synopsis, I want to completely scrap and rewrite my query? It might sound silly, but writing my synopsis made me realize about a plotline that might be more compelling in query form than my current one.

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That's pretty normal actually. Which is why I've lately started writing my synopsis as I write, so that I have an overall perspective.

AcaciaNeem said:

That's pretty normal actually. Which is why I've lately started writing my synopsis as I write, so that I have an overall perspective.

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I don't write my synopsis as I go, but I do try to keep a scene map along the way. I use a spreadsheet--one line per chapter, a few words about each scene within the chapter in columns. Then I can see the organization of the story at a glance, which helps immensely both in editing and writing the synopsis.

I'm starting to forget the actual order of events and what got finished when, but I wrote my query and synopsis really early on while dealing with the first draft. I found it super helpful in making sure I had the basic plot structure the way I wanted it. I'm thinking to write both before I even start the first draft on my next project.

So probably a common question- how do you find which agents to query? Do you go for the "big" ones first (the ones who agent your favorite authors), or just random agents on agentquery who work in your genre? I live in Norway, so we don't have agents here, and there seems to be a lot of them!

JeanGenie said:

So probably a common question- how do you find which agents to query? Do you go for the "big" ones first (the ones who agent your favorite authors), or just random agents on agentquery who work in your genre? I live in Norway, so we don't have agents here, and there seems to be a lot of them!

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You can try the agents who represent your favorite authors, but keep in mind if you write similar books they may not wish to have two authors competing with each other for the same slots. Otherwise, yeah, agentquery is a good place to look. The agents you approach shouldn't be random, though--check to see not only if they represent your genre, but whether they have a decent sales history in it.

A couple good places to start are http://www.manuscriptwishlist.com and https://querytracker.net to look for agents in your genre. Then do a little research on them, find out what they're looking for specifically, so some checking up on them via the Bewares section of this forum. You should be able to put a decent list together that way.

Two more rejections.

Scorecard for the 6 stories I started subbing on August 29:
11 submissions
7 rejections (6 form; 1 personal)
3 pending response
1 sale

I think I'll wait until tomorrow to re-sub the two that just got kicked back. Feeling discouraged at the moment.

Marlys said:

You can try the agents who represent your favorite authors, but keep in mind if you write similar books they may not wish to have two authors competing with each other for the same slots. Otherwise, yeah, agentquery is a good place to look. The agents you approach shouldn't be random, though--check to see not only if they represent your genre, but whether they have a decent sales history in it.

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Jeneral said:

A couple good places to start are http://www.manuscriptwishlist.com and https://querytracker.net to look for agents in your genre. Then do a little research on them, find out what they're looking for specifically, so some checking up on them via the Bewares section of this forum. You should be able to put a decent list together that way.

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Thanks!

Got a little discouraged by this post by Neil Gaiman (was snooping on his agent) which practically says "don't query without an offer". Never heard that one before :-/

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/01/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.asp

So today, the singer for the national anthem during the Lion's game took the knee while he finished the last word of the song and I am just....a mess of emotions. Several Lions players also knelt, and the entire team locked arms, just like the rest of the NFL.

I've been following Kaepernick since he first began his peaceful protest and watched the blowback, and it was so amazing to see so much of the NFL take a stand by taking a knee today. The best part was that it opened up a conversation about police brutality with my family that wouldn't have ever thought to talk about if it weren't because of the show of solidarity by the players. It renews my hope for the future.