The Great Thing About Rejection

This from one of my favourite agent bloggers, the Denver-based Kristin Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency:

Considering that 90% of the population wants to write a novel but never have the guts to go for it, being in the game is a huge thing. Even though it sucks, rejections are a badge of honor. A rite of passage for when the publishing day finally arrives. Every published writer has a story of a rejection.

You can’t tell a good keynote speech without it! More

Yes that's Hugh Grant starring in the Barbara Cartland film The Lady and the Highwayman. No, it's got nothing to do with anything.

So Rejection is good. It's ammo for that bright, sunshiny day when you deliver the keynote at a writers' conference. Keep a file, paper your walls with them (but use blue tack as you'll need to take them down to wave around during your speech).

Isn't it a long, long process though?

Writing the novel takes ages. Then sending it out and getting rejections takes years. Then maybe you get the agent. And then the agent sends it out and it STILL takes ages.

The longest stage has to be the period between writing it and getting the agent/publisher.

This is not just because it's a tough competitive market yada yada yada.

It's also because it takes a long time for a creative person to develop eyes that see.


When I wrote my first novel, I immediately stuffed it in an envelope and sent it to friends to read. The objective? Not to get critiques but to gain praise. It is a normal part of the creative process to really really think your first crappy effort is art.

One friend bought me a coffee at a Costa and gently pointed out that I'd sent it out with, not only hundreds of typos but non sequiturs, unbelievable plot twists, ridiculous coincidences, and a hopelessly ambitious structure that would give even the most accomplished editor a bad migraine.

It took me months to sit down and start writing again. I had to come to terms with the fact that it would be YEARS before I had anything publishable. (And yes, that was years ago)

But how to EXPEDITE the process?

Joining SCBWI - attending conferences and learning about the craft/trade - was a step in the right direction.

Finding a critique group that fit - not just no-hopers like myself but critiquers who know their stuff - helped too.

If you find it hard to take criticism from your peers, then you can go to professional editors like Cornerstones run by Helen Corner who, when asked if getting published is a tall order, replies:

"It's doable."

Cornerstones also runs workshops like this one on September 29. I was listening to their promotional mp3 (you can download and listen to it yourself with your media player at this link) and thought Helen's tale of rejecting potential gems in the slushpile when she worked at Penguin particularly poignant:

Part of my job was to process the unsolicited pile which are books sent by authors and not by agents. Penguin at the time had an automatic rejection policy, as do most publishers these days and quite often when I was going through my meter-high piles .... I would think what if the author had started in chapter two instead of chapter one, or developed the character more quickly, or written in a more show not tell way ... (Writers) really do need professional feedback and they should make it part of their writer learning curve to know how to look at what they'd written and to know not to submit to an agent or publisher unless they really are presenting the best writing that they possible can.

Which brings me neatly to an inspiring line from author Liz Rettig's often hilarious tips for writers on her website:

Expect rejections. There are many reasons for rejections only one of which is that your writing is rubbish.

Publication: No Immunity to Disappointment

I've become a real fan of Radio 4's wonderful obituaries programme, Last Word. The obituary page has always been a good place to discover undiscovered writers - it is where many a journalist has a chance to show off writing style that is otherwise blunted by dry and dusty news reporting.

Ground-breaking writers like Gay Talese (inventor of New Journalism) cut their teeth on obituaries.

Anyway. I've been away on holiday and the news of Pauline Baines' death on 1 August finally reached me via the Last Word programme (listen to the programme 8 August 2008, the item is in the last quarter of the broadcast).

Like everyone else, I had assumed that Pauline Baynes, who illustrated the books of both Tolkien' and C.S. Lewis, had long ago passed away.

Authors and illustrators alike will enjoy this blog tribute from her friend Brian Sibley (author of Shadowlands: the True Story of C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidson) which is full of wonderful anecdote about Baynes and the exclusive circle to which she was privy:

"Met C S Lewis. Came home. Made rock cakes." That's how Pauline's diary recorded one of the two meetings she had with the author who's work she so memorably embellished. It tells you exactly how she viewed her contribution to books that, for millions, of us were seminal childhood reading.

Brian Sibley was also interviewed for the Last Word piece and captures the importance of Baynes to the C.S. Lewis canon:

He (C.S. Lewis) often said that The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe had begun as pictures in his mind ... an image of a faun with an umbrella in a snowy wood, carrying a pile of parcels. Which is why when I look at The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe now, I see that image that CS Lewis must have seen in his head, but of course what I'm actually seeing is the interpretation of it by Pauline Baynes.

However, in this business we're in, producing iconic work does not guarantee immunity from rejection. Her friend, novelist Charlotte Cory, recalls:

She laughed a lot about the fact that every day in the post she got letters from aspiring young illustrators asking her for help when she also got letters rejecting her work from publishers.

Repeat after me ... it's not the arriving, it's the travelling that counts ...

Having said that, author Tom Bullough's story in yesterday's FT Weekend was heartbreaking to the extreme.

I wrote a piece last March about the author who got the agent, got the publisher, got the first book of the trilogy out ... then got dumped. Well, Tom Bullough, got the book deal (The Claude Glass is the story of a friendship between two children from very different backgrounds) then got on the shortlist for the Wales Book of the Year Award, was announced as the winner, was about to step onto the stage ... when the compere suddenly said it was all a mistake.

I set off towards the stage, a TV camera following me. I got to the foot of the stage, but there seemed to be some sort of strange hesitancy. I think I even said something like, “Do you want me to come up there or what?” Thomas then said he’d made a mistake. I hadn’t won.

I must have frozen for a couple of seconds. I’d gone from euphoria to absolute heartbreak.

Tom fears that he will be remembered for the awards fiasco and not for the book which he spent four years writing. This must have been soul destroying. I am sure all of us who continue to live with rejection sympathise with Tom - this book, good enough to be published, quality enough to enter the shortlist of three, deserves better.

Try not to staple your heart to your manuscript

Rejection scene from Why Writers Need Agents

There has been a sad slew of rejection news on one of the message boards I subscribe to.

And as usual, the rejectees are staring at the rejection letters, analyzing every little turn of phrase, and asking themselves, what does it mean?

I recently found this 2004 post from a blogger who calls herself Slushkiller ( she's slushpile reader) which makes some very useful notes about rejection herewith (I paraphrase):

1. Editors do not use different sized stationery to rate you on how badly your ms sucked.

2. When an editor says your ms is 'didactic, too wordy, and too lengthy' she isn't trying to hurt your feelings, she is telling you how to fix it.

3. An editor doesn't say nice things lightly.

Read the whole post here. It's long, but it's worth it

The Slushkiller post was a response to the website RejectionCollection.com, where writers can post rejection letters and say how they felt about them.

The best advice I've read about rejection letters comes from the Editorial Anonymous blog in a piece titled The Eight Rules of Rejection. I've quoted it before but it's always worth saying some things twice:

Most rejection letters mean nothing. Nothing. (Except that you can cross that publisher/agent off the list.) You need to internalize this fact however you can. Chant it in the bathtub. Write it backwards on your forehead. Listen to a tapeloop of it while you sleep. No matter what the editor/agent says, no matter what words they use, rejection letters mean nothing.

So cheer up. It's not personal. Laugh. Watch that video again. Write for the sake of writing. Everything else is a bonus.

(P.S. The write for the sake of writing quote came from author Julia Golding in the latest British SCBWI newsletter but since she's so far published 12 novels without even breaking into sweat, I couldn't quote her outright for fear of sending some people into a suicidal spin.)

Why Writers Need Agents

It was half term last week. We didn't manage to go away because the teenagers had exams coming. Bored children took root in my shed. Here is the result.