Good and Original

lol!

loquax said:

My English teacher once told me about a rejection letter by Samuel Johnson that went something like this:

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.

You may have seen it before, but I think it's worth a chuckle.

Click to expand...

A FEW MORE....

"This book fills a much-needed gap." - Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure." - Oliver Herford (1863-1935)

"I have read your book and much like it." - Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"The covers of this book are too far apart." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." - Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)


"Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research." - Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

"Why don't you write books people can read?" - Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." - T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

"Criticism is prejudice made plausible." - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." - Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

And there's always, "His works will be read when Shakespeare's aren't." And the fellow who asked a friend if he should put more fire in his poetry and was told to put more of his poetry into the fire...

Poor memory

And my favorite was said by Wilde/Chesterton/Someone, written to a book reviewer:

"Sir, I am in the smallest room in the house. You review is before me. Soon it will be behind me."

Actually, the "smallest room" quote was from a letter sent by the composer Max Reger to the critic Rudolph Louis, who had severely criticized one of Reger's compositions. (1906)

Good and original?

I think that disqualifies it from being published by most of the big houses. Walk into a supermarket and you see fiction book after fiction book.......


A retired cop (agent) tries to live in happy retirement when SUDDENLY a murder of a little girl (boy) draws him (her) back in for ONE LAST CASE and in solving the case they find that THEIR OWN LIFE is at risk (the danger is closer than they think, is a shadow from their past, threatens to unveil a secret long hidden or something of the same) and if that doesnt succeed then add -threatens to unlock the gates of hell, the doors to apocalypse, an evil the world has never seen......until you put the book down and read the jacket of the next book)


Sometimes being good and original disqualifies you.

I say that only to tell you-dont give up if the walmart companies reject you. There are other press groups and agents who are looking for fresh, new art. It just takes time to find them.

Pardon me as I go to the supermarket now.