The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

congrats Noranne, that's great!
JJ congrats on the new puppie.
Phantasy. sorry... those imaginary letters help in some way.

got nothing to say except I'm doing a print out read/edits before sending it to betas. and I'm at the "boy this books sucks, what is it really about" phase again. my baby threw the once in-order pages into a pile and took my red pen and did wonders to it. maybe she agrees.

Antonin The divorce process seems designed to make everyone as belligerent as possible. The whole thing sucks. It probably doesn't really help right now, but it will get easier once you're through it. I get along pretty well with my ex now, but it took a while for things to settle, then longer for civility to turn into something that felt like getting along.

I keep not pointing this out, but I have a story available for free at the top link in my sig. It's nice and short, and it should be good for a laugh.

JJ, your short story is adorable!

Sigh. No bites on #SFFpit. Only saw YA fantasies getting love today. Wish I wrote YA. Or romances. Sigh more. Onwards. I guess.

Vegetarian Cannibal said:

Sigh. No bites on #SFFpit. Only saw YA fantasies getting love today. Wish I wrote YA. Or romances. Sigh more. Onwards. I guess.

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I wouldn't be discouraged. I don't think there were that many agents and publishers participating today. I saw barely any at all.
=)

PeskyRedhead said:

I wouldn't be discouraged. I don't think there were that many agents and publishers participating today. I saw barely any at all.
=)

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I noticed that, too! Thanks.

We might be past the high point of Twitter pitch contests. The last several ones I paid attention to, it seemed not that many agents were involved. They'd just tweet something about not keeping up or being too busy to follow it right now, so query them if have something you think they'd like.

I like your story, JJ. It was a fun, interesting read.

Nova Odyssey said:

maybe she agrees.

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Or maybe she wishes she could read it. Optimism.

Yeah I agree about Twitter pitching, I think it has maybe passed its peak. I got a couple nibbles today, but 2 were small presses and 1 was a clueless follower. I got 2 agent interests, and I did decide to query them, but it was with a little trepidation as one is quite new and the other has some not-great client testimonial here on AW. But we'll see...

Anyway, now that SFFpit it passed, I am going to send out a round of queries. I wanted to wait so I didn't get in a situation where I got a SFFpit fave from someone who'd already R'ed. But no worries now! Gonna try to do 10 tomorrow.

Enjoyed your story JJ, all the way to the end which is rare for me.

Vegetarian Cannibal - welcome back and sorry about the lack of #SFFpit love. I do agree with noranne and JJ that Twitter pitch parties might be losing steam with agents.

PeskyRedhead and Mary Love - Pull up a chair and help yourselves to some fresh brownies. Also, we have the best open bar of AW.

noranne - good luck querying! Maybe this MS will be The One!

Nova - I wouldn't take it personally. I'm sure your baby is just a particularly harsh critic.

Thanks everyone for the hugs! Yes, I'm currently working on the next novel, but every now and then I'll second guess that I understand how a novel really works. Are the first chapters interesting enough? Do they properly raise the stakes? Do I know how to raise the stakes? And so on...It can be depressing, but oh well. I must forge on.

Loved your story, JJ!


Sorry to those who got no bites for SFFPit. I agree, the twitter pitch contests may be oversatured atm. Also, there's still a ton of agents who aren't on social media too often. And with an agent's known busy schedules, I don't blame them.

As for me, my twitter pitching days are on hiatus until I get through this mentorship.

Speaking of, still waiting on my mentor to read my novel and offer advice. I'm excited to get it. However, it's been almost three weeks since the mentorship started, and he was supposed to read it beforehand but didn't because he wanted my thought-process first. I might ask the organizer for a time extension when they check in on us. Or should I do it earlier? Or should I ask my mentor first? Not sure what to do.

phantasy said:

until I get through this mentorship.

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Make sure you share your experience when you finish--I'm curious to hear how it goes and how you like it.

Phantasy - I'd talk to your mentor first, just so you're both on the same page.

I feel like the only Twitter pitch contests that will stay relevant will be those that were highly specific in some way, like DVpit was.

Good point, Antonin. Maybe that would be the way to make them work again.

I can see that. The whole Twitter pitch thing has just exploded so much that the more general ones are too unwieldy.

JJ - I haven't seen any puppy pics in at least a couple days. Please fix this.

Pugging away here. I've been sidelined by a MASSIVE summer cold that had me miss two days of work. That never happens, y'all. But I'm finally getting over it, and today was a slow day at work, so I snuck in a good few pages in longhand of a new scene I need to plug in. I'm hoping to spend this weekend getting it into shape, and then pugging on ahead with the rest. The end (of this draft) is nigh!

I agree that "highly specific" Twitter parties are likely to still work. The general ones are way too unwieldy and overwhelming.

JJ - I'm with Jeneral: more puppy pics, please!

Jeneral - sorry about your cold but glad you're on the mend! And yay on getting writing done on a slow work day!

I tweeted a few somewhat blurred photos. It's hard to get unblurred ones because she is constantly in motion.

One of my SFFpit faves (ugh, I guess they're likes now? boo, Twitter) turned into a full request the same day. So that was nice--although this is the agent I am somewhat wary of. I sent it along this morning. If it gets towards an offer of rep (ha), it'll definitely be a conversation I want to have.

Sent out a new round of queries this morning. Was shooting for 10 but I got tired after 5. Will probably do another 5 on Monday. And then play the waiting game...

MS7 draft is coming along slowly but surely, creeping up towards feeling like a real novel! Hopefully will have time to work on it this weekend, as well as that stupid short story I keep saying I'm going to revise and submit and just haven't.

Hope everyone is having a good, productive weekend!

noranne said:

I wanted to wait so I didn't get in a situation where I got a SFFpit fave from someone who'd already R'ed. But no worries now!

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This happened to me. Is it bad? I'm trying to tell myself either she recognized the story and was offering confirmation/support, or (far more likely) she didn't recognize it as one she has, but it REALLY means she likes the concept. I didn't reply, either way. I didn't want to point out that she had it already and risk embarrassing us both.