When I always feel better

After my bit of self-pity earlier tonight I got a chance to write on a short story and the words flowed well. Sometimes they do and sometimes they do.

But getting published or not, I always feel better after I write. Part of the point of this blog is to make certain I write something every day. You must push yourself to do it, even when you know it will make you feel better.

That is something to remember.

Getting published would, indeed, feel good, but not as good as just the writing itself.

Yours in rejection,

Phil

All it takes is one "Yes!"

Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you just have to win the lottery once, too.

Out of sorts. Four rejection letters in the mail today.

Four. FOUR. I will refrain from cursing with an alliterative expletive.

Plenty of moments you simply want to quit. But I won't think of that today, I'll think of that tomorrow.

I hope you get a "yes" today.

Yours in rejection,

Phil

Elaine Koster and the DaVinci Code

To properly understand this post you need to get within the mind of a person who gets multiple rejections from literary agents.

Screw that, I wouldn't do that to you. But let's put it this way, prospective authors are looking for ANY sign on a rejection note — even the form rejection — that will give them some clues about their work.

But when I pulled ELAINE KOSTER'S rejection note from the envelope, I didn't really pay much attention that it was from ELAINE KOSTER. That would make her initials E.K., right?

Yes.

But I wasn't paying attention to that. I was looking at the small, handwritten note at the top of the page. It said "Sorry, not for us. EK, 5-31."

At least that was all I saw at the moment. Had I been paying attention I would have noted that the rejection was from ELAINE KOSTER.

Instead, my eye went directly to the "EK, 5-31."

This agent is quoting a Bible verse! I was beside myself. She is trying to send me a clue about my work! But what kind of clue. Quick, I had to find a Bible.

What was EK, anyway? I figured Ezekiel, so I quickly went to find Ezekiel 5:31. There is no such verse, but Ezekiel's Chapter 5 has some interesting passages including this gem:

"I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke."

What? What had I done to piss off this woman?

Maybe it was Exodus, or Ecclesiastes. Nope and Nope.

I went back for the tenth time to look at the note. Who was this woman?

It was ELAINE KOSTER, EK. Then I noticed there wasn't just a 5-31, but it was a 5-31-10.

It was the freaking date and her initials.

Somehow, I still feel as if this is a punishment from God.

Yours in rejection,

Phil

"The Kite Runner" mystery

I read that Khaled Hosseini, the author of "The Kite Runner," said he was rejected by 30 agents before the intelligent Elaine Koster signed him on.

I'll have another post about Elaine Koster later, but for right now, I cannot get past my astonishment that 30, THIRTY, THREE-ZERO agents rejected "The Kite Runner." Oh, my good Lord.

This is beyond discouraging.

Because how much worse are either of my novels than "The Kite Runner"? The scale has not been invented to map such a difference. It would have to be on the order of parsecs.

And, remember, this is by MY judgment. I wrote the novels and think they are damn fine pieces of work (he said with an air of humility), but they are not "The Kite Runner."

Here is the only optimistic thing I can gather from this story. I happen to know that 30 agents did not read "The Kite Runner" and reject it. Probably 25 of them read and rejected a query letter. Another four read and rejected the 30 sample pages he sent with the original query. One asked for the first 100 pages and rejected it.

Then along came Elaine Koster. Damn smart woman.

More later on her.

Yours in rejection,

Phil

'Not what we need at this time'

One of my favorite rejection form rejection notes I did not even recognize as a form the first time I saw it. Only when I sent the same agent another query for a completely different novel — and got the same exact note — did I realize what was going on.

"This wasn't as compelling as I thought it would be," the agent said.

As an author this is a bit deflating of course. Not compelling? Hell, I thought it was jam packed with compelling.

But at least the agent read the short sample you sent, you think. That is better than nothing. Then you toddle away to make your work more "compelling," however the hell you do that.

Then I got the same note for the second novel.

Now is it a form letter, or is all my crap just non-compelling? Well, I admit, the latter is a distinct possibility, but it sounds too fishy for me.

Besides, I think I am damn compelling.

Yours in rejection,

Phil

Closure, I need closure!

You may think the testy rejection note, or perhaps the downright mean one (I've never gotten one of those) is as low as it gets trying to find a place for your work.

Wrong.

The worst is no answer at all.

Which is why I would prefer to send a query via snail-mail with an SASE, though it costs money rather than send an email to an agent who openly tells you, "We only respond to work we are interested in."

Why is this? Because, they say, they get so many solicitations.

Balderdash, I say.

It takes no longer to hit the "reply" button and type "no, thanks" and hit "send" than it does to stuff a rejection note into an SASE and put it in the outbox.

Most of those you email will give you a response.

Thank you, gentlemen and ladies. I greatly appreciate it and so do millions of other sub-par and otherwise unpublished writers.

To the rest of you, I'd like to impress upon you to just hit that reply button. You don't even have to thank us, just say "no." It will make us sleep better. Really.

Yours in rejection,

Phil

My current favorite agent

That would be Felicia Eth, who I saw on one list as being one of the top 10 fiction agents in the country.

The top ten! And she wanted to see my work!

Hooray!

OK, so she was interested in my novel enough to want to see the first 100 pages.

I sent the pages off and waited with every cliche you can possibly think of. I burned candles. found out the origin of the "Eth" name and prayed to the ancient Gods.

So I get a wonderful email back from Felicia. Forget that she didn't want to pick me up, she said nice things about my writing, she told me what she thought was wrong, she gave me hints of how I might go about correcting it.

You can't pay for that kind of help from someone of her caliber.

Thank you, Felicia Eth.

So you CAN get rejected and it makes you feel even better.

But there is this: I sent the first 100 pages and Felicia told me some of the problems she had.

I wanted to send her back an email and say, "Felicia, all that stuff you wanted, it started on PAGE ONE-HUNDRED-ONE!!!

I didn't think she would buy it. She's too smart for that...

Yours in rejection,

Phil