Or something like that. 
My partial just got rejected, but alas, it's not all bad news.
While I didn't get a "helpful" rejection (as in detailed feedback), hearing the agent really liked reading the partial is good news.
Being rejected because it isn't right for the agency isn't as disheartening either. It does mean the story has to land on the right desk, at the right time, and the agent or editor has to be the right one.
I'm not going to let a rejection get me down. If I did, I'd best get out of this writing business right now, because once I do find the right agent, the right editor, it won't be all smooth sailing.
There will be people who hate the story and they will probably say so. In a way, I see rejections as a precursor for any bad reviews I might get. (No book gets 100% good reviews, let's not deceive ourselves.) I'm determined to remain positive and look ahead, and treat every rejection the same way I want to treat a bad review: They didn't like it, but it doesn't mean it sucks. Move on.
I have seen authors get into veritable wars with reviewers or nay-sayers. I refuse to join that particular club.
Sure, I have my own opinions, we all do. I'm not one to never speak up, either. I do, however, respect someone elses opinion and while I may not agree with them, they are entitled to it. I may change my mind, after all, I'm far from perfect. But I try to be amicable about it, and what's more, I try to be professional about it.
Writing is what I do in my spare time, but I would like to give up the day job some day and write full time. It's not a hobby, it's a business I love. An obsession, if you must know the truth, because if I didn't write, you'd have to eventually find a nice padded cell for me.
Many of us budding authors treat writing far too casually, far to "hobby" like. If you plan to make a living from writing, then tell people who ask that you are a writer first, everything else second. After all, if YOU don't take it seriously, why should they?
So go ahead, take your writing seriously, treat it like the career it is. Just don't go overboard in the wrong direction.
Don't fight with readers, other authors, agents or editors.
If you're rejected, take it with dignity.
If you get a bad review, take it with dignity.
You can learn from a rejection, and from a bad review. In fact, you probably learn a lot from a bad review, if you take the time to get over the battered ego and find out why the reader didn't like your story.
If you have the chance to contact the reviewer, do so, but only to gather feedback, not to yell at them.
You never know, the things they didn't like might be avoidable. It may give you an insight you didn't have before.
Yes, it hurts. Of course it does, it's your baby, your lover, your life – all rolled into one. Still, get over the hurt and see the positive side. You can learn from it, if you really choose to.
So I'm not going to beat myself up over the rejection, although I would have loved to work with the agent I queried.
I'll go over it again, double check everything, and one day I will find a home for the book.
8
Feb
Well, okay. Maybe not all. Every story needs some supporting characters, but if (like me) you find yourself having ten dozen of them… well.
Give 'em the chop.
I've recently cut a supporting character out of a book. I didn't want to. I like him. My readers liked him.
He had to go. He didn't contribute anything. Originally he was the reason for discovery, he was a quirky kid who made the best of a bad situation.
Did I mention I really liked him?
Yeah.
I cut him dead, instead. Chopped him right out of the story and saved about 2k words, an entire chapter, and (hopefully) speeded up the pace.
So is poor Jack going to be dead and forgotten? Did I give him a tombstone? No.
He's safe. Safe in a file, alive and well in another story where he plays more of an integral part. He is part of the plot there, where in this story he was an afterthought, a filler.
Sometimes it is necessary to cut a character out of a story, even if it's a great character.
It's about word economy and flow. It's about continuance. It's about being ruthless.
Sometimes you just have to kill them.
What did I do to get around the plot part Jack played?
I had another character in there already (yes, another one), so he got some of Jack's plot parts instead. It still works.
There was a part where I had to rejig a lot of the story to make it fit, to have a different way of creating the conflict Jack had created, but again — all it took was a little reworking and it fitted nicely. (Okay, not as nicely as I'd have liked, but I'm working on it.)
Ask yourself if you need a character who only shows up occasionally with some pithy lines, but who essentially doesn't add anything to the story.
Do you really need them?
Can someone else come up with those lines?
Do they advance the plot?
Can someone else (already existing) advance the plot instead?
If you can cut them out, don't bury them. Save everything in a file, because that character won't just go away. (If it was a well developed character, they shouldn't, anyway.) He/She might fit as a more integral character in another story, play a bigger, more pivotal role.
Save their background, their traits and weaknesses. Save everything you can, preserve story/plot parts as intact as you are able, because you never know when you might go back to it.
Whether you keep a physical file for those chopped characters, or a digital one — keep it safe.
Just because he's not part of this story, doesn't mean your effort in creating him/her was wasted.
Like Arnie — he'll be back.
So don't sweat it. If you need to cut words in a novel, take a good hard look at the supporting cast and cut with a hatchet, rather than lose a word here and there while you preserve a character that doesn't add anything to the story.
We've been talking about writing habits, over at Passionate Critters. (My critique group)
Mostly about revision, but also writing in general. Harper did a very nice blog post about it.
There are different habits, different ways of doing things. None of us are the same, we all have our little quirks. Little things we like to do. What works for one person, might not work for another.
Personally, I'm a night owl. I do my best writing at night, way past midnight usually, slurping a tepid (or cold) cup of coffee that has sat on my desk so long, I forgot it's there. (I used to work in IT. Cold coffee is… not unusual.)
When I concentrate, when I'm in the story, I don't see or hear anything else. You could probably rob me blind while I am that deep into it, I wouldn't notice. Well, not until you tried to take my computer. I'd probably murder the burglar for interrupting the flow.
To concentrate, I often fiddle with little strips of fabric, roll it between my fingers while my mind goes into overdrive. For some odd reason the feel of the fabric helps me to focus.
I go outside, stare into the darkness while I have a cigarette (yes, filthy blah blah…) and my characters usually have a conversation in my head while I do it. If there is a particular pose I want to convey, I try it out, see how it would look or feel. My neighbors probably wonder about me. Oh well.
I write everywhere. There isn't a second of the day when I don't write — even if it's just in my head. I get incredibly annoyed when I have something I need to put on paper or screen, and I can't. Boy, do I ever!
But if you watch me — I won't write a word. Not even one. I will wait until everyone is out of the room, because I can't stand having someone watch me. It drives me nuts when someone does that.
Yep, weird.
That's me, you may well have your own habits.
So how do I revise?
Pretty much the same way. I don't have set formula. I don't do it chapter by chapter. I read my stuff many, many, times though.
Over and over. Sometimes just for pleasure. That's when I find things, when I read it as a reader, not as a writer.
I step away for at least a week before I revise. I won't open the file, won't read any of it.
Then I read it again and hopefully notice those odd bits that don't work, or the ones in the wrong place, or where the pace slows down, or… you get the idea.
I cut words. Sometimes just one, sometimes entire chapters. If I get bored reading it, then so does anyone else. Out it comes.
What I don't do is throw that stuff out. It goes into another file.
I look for duplications. I sometimes say the same thing twice, using different words. In fact, I do this a lot.
I look for repetition, words I use a lot, phrases too. Unless it's a trademark of the character, it comes out.
You could say I have a habit of culling my habits.
24
Aug
I have been slack.
Not just writing wise, but blogging wise too.
Though I did manage to finish the "Short" story.
I’m letting it stew at the moment, because I’m not happy with the ending. Not much time though, the thing needs to go out of the door soon.
In other news, I had the judging sheets from the Rebecca back.
93 from one judge, 68 from another.
One was published, one wasn’t.
(No, I don’t know who they are.)
Seems to me one judge got the story, the other didn’t.
The annoying thing is, the stuff I got marked down for wasn’t reflected in the comments. The comments of the lower score… well. I don’t put backstory into the first twenty pages, because it doesn’t belong there.
I don’t make dialog changes from sensible to downright idiotic sounding. (Sorry, Judge. The suggestions were simply stupid and sounded awful — and I’m not the only one who thought so.)
There is some telling, yes, but nowhere near as much as this judge claimed. Yeah, the low score pissed me off. The comments even more so because I didn’t agree with 90% of them.
Nor did I appreciate the condescending "I’m published and you’re not therefore I’m right and you’re wrong." tone at the end of the sheet.
I’ve I told that author whose work I’ve edited, she would probably faint.
Saying that, I still appreciate the time taken to judge the entry and make detailed comments, even if I didn’t agree with them.
We can’t win them all!
The other score sheet was better. The changes suggested were a great help, the catches were all reflected in the score. Most of all, she got it. She got the story, the characters, the world, and that makes all the difference. Thank you, Judge 15, whoever you are. I will be making some of those changes you suggested.
Oddly, the changes suggested by J15, were partly the ones I agreed with from the other judge. Funny that. Both caught the same things, and those I will address. (Cliche’s mostly.)
What else?
TTT – I got as far as the first 5 lines round, a few fellow critters did too. I’m proud of us.
So as September nears, I will get back into writing and blogging.
29
Jul
sag (s?g)
v. sagged, sag·ging, sags
- To sink, droop, or settle from pressure or weight.
- To lose vigor, firmness, or resilience: My spirits sagged after I had been rejected for the job.
- To decline, as in value or price: Stock prices sagged after a short rally.
I have to deal with my sagging middle.
No, I don’t mean go on a diet, and exercise. (Though I ought to!)
I mean that tripe I managed to put in my book.
It sags. It’s overweight and it is out of shape.
I’ve hated it even while I wrote it. It has to go.
But how do you give your story a lean, toned six-pack?
Perform surgery. Not the plastic kind, either.
First you open the belly. Then you rip the guts out, tie a knot in them and cut off unnecessary parts.
Be brutal.
Go to the point where the story still moves forward and put a marker there.
Go to the point where the story continues to the end and put a marker there.
Rip out everything in between, lay it out and examine it.
Does it have conflict?
Does it move the plot (not the story, but the plot) forward?
Does it offer new insights into the characters?
Are the conflicts something the characters need to deal with?
Do things get worse when they do? (And create more conflicts.)
Middles are hard for me.
Difficult and tricky.
I tend to fail at being mean to my characters at the point where it sags.
So I’ve concluded to send my inner nice person for a week on the beach, so it won’t bother me while I’m mean to the people in the book.
Then I’ll start in the middle with some “What If’s” and see where it takes me.
I’ll send those guys up a tree and throw rocks at them. Big ones. Stuff they can’t dodge.
Things they have to deal with, or things get worse. Of course, they will get worse no matter what they do. They need to fail a few times and find another way.
And when they think they made it across the bridge, I’ll show them a frazzled rope to make them hurry up before it rips and drops them into the abyss, or some broken slats they need to get over. (I’ll cut the rope afterwards, so they can’t get back that way, either…)
Doing all this should tighten that flabby belly.
Now if only this would work for the other saggy middle of mine, too!