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Writing Stuff
Mar. 22nd, 2010 08:53 pmThe rejections have been flowing into my mailbox and my email box of late. I've gotten rejection letters from three of the initial five publishers I sent my novel to, and one of the second-round submissions. That's fast! I was expecting not to hear anything for months, but I've gotten responses very quickly in these cases. Huh. Two of the rejections had a personal touch, two were standard boilerplate rejections.
I also got a rejection letter from Analog today for "In Adversity". It's back out alread (gotta love email submissions). I also got all three of those stories from the dead market back into circulation.
The lovely and talented wife remarked today that she was pleased and surprised by how well (how calmly and philosophically) I've been taking the rejections. It was nice to hear, but on the other hand, I didn't think my reaction was particularly noteworthy. I've known for a long time (since long before I started trying to sell my fiction) that writers have to be prepared to wallpaper their homes with rejection letters before they're likely to succeed. So just shrugging and filing the rejection letter away and sending the story out again is just...what you do.
It helps, I think, that I'm circulating a number of stories. If I were sending out one story at a time, and waiting on pins and needles by the mailbox to see if it had been accepted, I'd be a lot more invested in any particular story's success or failure. As it stands, a rejected story is just one of many, and mostly just means I need to decide where to send it next and get it out the door. If you're busy enough with writing projects, you don't have time to obsess over the rejections.
April isn't far away and then it'll be time to start my next novel. I have no idea what I'm going to write. But then, I had no idea what I was going to write in November when did NaNo. And yet I managed to produce one. So I'll do it again. Flying by the seat of my pants isn't the most calming approach, but it seems to be what works for me.
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 32
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 1 Novel, 5 queries out
Novel Rejections: 4
I also got a rejection letter from Analog today for "In Adversity". It's back out alread (gotta love email submissions). I also got all three of those stories from the dead market back into circulation.
The lovely and talented wife remarked today that she was pleased and surprised by how well (how calmly and philosophically) I've been taking the rejections. It was nice to hear, but on the other hand, I didn't think my reaction was particularly noteworthy. I've known for a long time (since long before I started trying to sell my fiction) that writers have to be prepared to wallpaper their homes with rejection letters before they're likely to succeed. So just shrugging and filing the rejection letter away and sending the story out again is just...what you do.
It helps, I think, that I'm circulating a number of stories. If I were sending out one story at a time, and waiting on pins and needles by the mailbox to see if it had been accepted, I'd be a lot more invested in any particular story's success or failure. As it stands, a rejected story is just one of many, and mostly just means I need to decide where to send it next and get it out the door. If you're busy enough with writing projects, you don't have time to obsess over the rejections.
April isn't far away and then it'll be time to start my next novel. I have no idea what I'm going to write. But then, I had no idea what I was going to write in November when did NaNo. And yet I managed to produce one. So I'll do it again. Flying by the seat of my pants isn't the most calming approach, but it seems to be what works for me.
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 32
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 1 Novel, 5 queries out
Novel Rejections: 4