Don't reject me... You wouldn't like me if you rejected me! (Okay, a very poor tribute to the Hulk's famous line!)

Rejection sucks! Is there something in the human body that sends out a flood of horrid hormones when the sudden bad news hits? Because, honestly, the moment the words hit my eyeballs, I feel totally sick to my stomach, I am dizzy, depressed, and I suddenly start snapping at whoever is in my path about absolutely nothing ("Why is there only one barrette in your head? Can we not keep two barrettes in your hair? They're like lost socks in the dryer, for goodness sakes. Am I made of money that I should keep buying more? Next time you wear pink you're just going to have to wear one pink and one purple, because I am not buying more! Do you hear me??")

I get a full-on headache that feels like some construction worker just started a jackhammer in my skull. My entire motivation to power on is sucked dry. I immediately go to that bad place. ("I'm not ever going to make it! I'm a horrible writer!")

No, I didn't start sending queries again, but for those of you out there who are, I feel your pain. I forget, sometimes, those brief minutes - or hours - after a rejection when everything in you shuts down. It may not take long to bounce back, but that period of time before the resiliency is worse than awful.

This all started tonight when I returned from a very pleasant and unexpected night out when I had a great conversation with my husband about a really positive critique I'd gotten on a submission to my Formerly Lame Internet writing group (heretofore called my FLI group). I was feeling confident. My husband told me I need to stop saying all the time that there are a million better writers out there and that the odds are stacked against me. I started to listen.

Then I opened my email. And there, in all it's ugliness, was one of the worst critiques you could set your eyes on. Not only a slaughter of my writing, but rude and snarky comments as well, such as "Can I suggest you Buy a copy of Bobbie Christmas “Write in Style” and study it in depth" and "I suggest you read aloud to yourself and then edit before exposing your work to a critical audeicne." (The typos are his) Here's another favorite: "Same problem with this sentence, three commas + And. Do you sue a grammar style checker, such as the one on MS word? " The snarky comments doubled the size of my work.

The worst part? Some of what he said was true, and I knew it. Never mind that the majority of what he said made no sense and that he obviously didn't read my preface where I said this was the third chapter in a book and that Travis, named briefly here, was her husband because he kept telling me he had no idea who Travis was and what the heck was happening? The point was, some of what he said did make sense.

And the delightful, empowering conversation with my husband went out the window, and the headaches, dizziness, sickening feeling, and irrational crabbiness ensued. And I remembered how much this feeling sucks.

And then, as I was fighting to claw my way out of this hole, another email arrived. A private one from someone in the group, who told me to ignore everything this guy said, that she thought my writing was really good and he didn't know what he was talking about.

And, like that, the scales balanced out.

This, I suppose, is how we manage in this business. With friends. I thought today about much things have changed for me in the last year. A year ago I was writing on my own. I knew no one else who wrote. I had no one else unbiased that could read my work. It felt like me against the writing world. And then I met you all. I met the members of my Fab 4 Four Corners group. I met a few stellar individuals in my FLI group. And suddenly I am not alone.

So thank you for being part of my life. Thank you for hoping with me, and seeing a great future when I can't. Thank you for saying something positive even if you have to dig deep to find it. Thank you for sharing your work, your hopes, your fears, your rejections. Y'all rock!

Adapt and Overcome

During the school year I made a habit of writing every day in the quiet room of my local library. It's a luxury I no longer have. Now I write on the fly, whenever I can. I'm not sure it's working well for the novel, but it's important for me to keep the dedication.

These are the places I've worked on my novel in the past seven days:



A hotel room in New York, every night after everyone else went to sleep.


My kitchen table, with only the light of the laptop screen after the electricity went out.

The customer waiting room of the Honda Service Department.

And my favorite, here:


This is the table I sit at when we go to the pool. I write overlooking the Potomac River, take a dip in the pool when it gets too hot, and still be a great mom.

So where do you writers write? And how do you adapt when life gets crazy?

Over at Other Blogs

Over at Editorial Anonymous: a brilliant deduction of how poorly written (and edited) books by fairly well known writers still end up on the shelves. You know it happens. You can name five books on one hand that should have gotten the boot at the publisher door. Yet still they make it when your own brilliant, genius writing can't find a decent agent.

This is what Ed Anon says:

The editor who looks at the newest manuscript from this person wants to send it back and say, "I love your writing, but there's no character development or plot arc in this. You can do better." But the editor knows that (a) if the manuscript was published as-is, people would still buy it. A lot of people. And (b) if the editor says no to this, there's a fair chance the author would just turn around and sell it to some other publisher. Then that other publisher would have the mediocre book and the pile of money, and the original editor's Sales and Marketing people would be Highly Displeased that those sales were not theirs. Highly. Displeased.

Who has the guts to say no to money? The truth is, not a lot of people, especially in a business that's low-profit for pretty much everybody involved. And, more's the pity, those of us who want to Just Say No are under some serious pressure to say yes. You can get kicked out of school for not taking these drugs.

No deduction why us readers continue to buy these books.

The Age Old Question: To Agent or Not To Agent

Someone in my internet-generated writing group brought an interesting if not well-argued question to the table: Why bother paying an agent 15% when you as an author are more invested and have more passion to sell the book on your own?
My first reaction was to roll my eyes and say, "he must be new to publishing!" But in an effort to be magnanimous and fair, I began to think, are there times where it is better to forgo the agent? After all, all of my opinions about how valuable agents are come from agents. Hmmm.... there is something a bit biased there.

BookEnds Literary Agency has a post about the value agents bring here and here.

Interestingly, Miss Snark has a very open-minded post about it here, in which she does give circumstances (or types of books) in which it is acceptable to self-publish.

An editor writes from the publisher point of view here about how important it is to have an agent bring your manuscript to them for consideration.

I also found an excellent blog written by a publishing consultant (who knew those existed?) who also details many different facets of publishing for profit, both agented and non.

After researching the possibilities, this is my take on the issue.

If you are writing non-fiction, it is easier to get published without an agent than if you are writing fiction. I'm not talking to the non-fiction side because I don't know that as well, and I have a sneaky suspicion it is an entirely different beast (the way people think all diabetes is diabetes, even though type 1 and type 2 are entirely different).

If you are writing fiction, there are options, but you have to weigh what it is you really want, and how much money and time you are willing to pay or give up in order to reach that.

• If you want to have a publisher publish you, as opposed to paying a vanity or POD or equity press, you're options are very limited. Most big publishing houses won't accept unsolicited manuscripts. You could have the next Harry Potter and it will used to break in their new shredding machine. No one will even look the teensiest look at it.

• You can go to smaller presses. The competition here is fierce, but you have more of a shot than the big houses. You don't, however, get the same level of marketing expertise or large print runs. Depending on whether they decide to publish traditionally or Print On Demand (POD), you may not have a shot at even getting your book into a bookstore. They also can't afford the masses of editors and layout experts, and often can't even afford people who are trained in this, and as such, your book is much more likely to be fraught with typos and strange layouts.

There are upsides to the small press, though, which include better communication and author involvement, and more personalized marketing. A much more comprehensive article about small presses is here.

In short: small presses offer opportunities to get published for the novelist, but if you want to make real money, you may need to later look for an agent who can then sell your book to a large press. Also, if you want to sell foreign language rights or movie rights, it behooves you to have an agent in your corner for that, as well. If your book sold well you have a better chance of landing an agent than if you hadn't published at all. If your book didn't sell well, you'll have a harder time landing an agent.

My instinct, though, with this gentleman who initially brought this question up, is that he thought it would be better to self-publish and market the book yourself. Take your boxes, if you will, and sit in front of a bookstore or a library and peddle them yourself. Which, frankly, is something many agented authors do anyway.

• The downside to self-publishing, unfair or not, is that is has a really poor reputation among the publishing community. If you self-publish, most agents and publishing houses do not recognize that as published. You can't go to them and say, "I have published one book, and now I want you to re-publish it, or publish my new one." As most self-publishing presses accept almost anyone who wants to shell out the money, you buy no credit with those who are picky.

Here is a great article on what to beware of in vanity presses. They are fraught with sneaky, thieving companies who prey on an author's desire to see their words in print. Some are fine, but many are not. Be very careful who you go with if you choose this option.

• Money is the thing other than reputation that makes this seem less viable to me. You end up paying for these publications more than most authors can recoup selling. Unless you are an amazing seller, in which case maybe you should be doing something else other than writing.

Let's take Lulu, which is one of the more popular self-publishers these days. If I want to publish my 300 page novel in paperback book form the size of a regular paperback (and not a trade), the cost per book is $49.95. For 25 copies, it's $1,238.25. For 500 books, it's 22,135, about $44 per book. I'm not sure how I am going to peddle that in front of Border's when someone can go inside and buy one for $7.99.

I recently read a book published by ACW Press, a reputable small self-publishing press which includes cover design and ISBN number so you can supposedly sell it in a bookstore, if one would take it. They also say they have professional editing, but the book I read had many typos, and occasionally the wrong name of a character or grammar issues which were most definitely not intended stylistically. If I wanted to publish my 300 word book there, POD, I'd have to pay $1,799. That would get me 15 books, which I would have to sell at $119 a piece. I could order more at $10.28 a piece. If I wanted a traditional press run of 1,000 copies, it would cost $10,220, which is only $10 a book to break even, if I could sell them all. There are extra costs, of course, which range from .10 to 3.50 per book, which you almost certainly would want.

I'm not saying this isn't viable. I just think it would be very difficult to break even, money wise. I didn't get into writing to become wealthy, but I certainly didn't do it to lose money, either.

I'm quite sure I didn't cover everything, and I am equally certain I probably got something wrong, but in my own opinion, agents make their money, and it's worth waiting to get one. I'm not expecting Spielberg to pick up my book for a movie, or fifteen European countries to snatch up French, Italian and German translations. But if they did, I'd want someone who knew what they were doing to take care of it. And frankly, I'm too busy writing to figure out all these details. Maybe if I only had one book in me, and wanted to spend the next ten years peddling it.... nah. Even then, I'd need someone else looking out for me.

At least that way I have someone else to blame other than myself! :)

God Is Calling Me To Get Back To Writing My Book and Quit Lurking Around the Blogging World (but will I listen??)

Either my attention span is getting shorter or there are a whole lot more blogs on my bookmarks list. I used to be able to hit them all every day, at first just lurking and eventually branching out a little to leave comments here and there.

Suddenly, I've had to prioritize. There are only three agent blogs I hit every day now, and three or four personal/writer ones. The rest I read when I get around to them, skimming the previous weeks to see if there is anything I can't do without.

Today I checked in on Rachelle Gardner's blog and found several really good posts.

One post is about voice. I'm beginning to think this is the "thing" for this year in writing. Everyone wants a great one. No one can define what it is. It can't be taught, but it's essential to a good book. Everyone seems to want to weigh in on it: agents, authors, publishers. Trying to grasp what it is is like trying to hold water in your fingers. It seems to slip away as soon as you think you've got it.

Rachelle also did a 100 word contest. With a twist: she gave a photo as a prompt. I didn't participate (obviously, as I wasn't on top of my blog reading enough to catch it in time), but it is really fun (maybe particularly because I didn't enter) to read the very creative entries, as well as what Rachelle thinks are outstanding.

My favorite, however, is one that may not even effect you, but was entirely funny and useful for me. It is called God Told Me To Write This Post. It touches on faith and writing, and how NOT to use that as your hook to get agents to notice you. She's been getting a lot of queries where people start with, "God told me to write this book." I was shocked to hear people actually use this line in a query.

I liked it particularly because I agree that God may call people to do things other than the obvious. He may really want you to write a particular story. But not necessarily call you to publish it. Why? Because the process of writing may be more important than the publication. The discipline, the insights, what we get out of writing, how others close to us are affected by us writing.... these may all be more important. This isn't to say we shouldn't get published, or try to anyway. Just that we shouldn't tell an agent God told us to. Which, I would think goes without saying.

(Rachelle is, by the way, an agent for WordServe Literary and reps mostly Christian authors, whether their books be overtly Christian or not. If you are a writer, even if not a Christian, she's worth the read. She is funny and snarky and sharp and deep, and she doesn't blog particularly to a Christian audience).

I really like Rachelle's blog. Everytime I stop by her blog I laugh, I think, I ponder, I come up with 50 things to blog about on my own, but never have time to. I think this is why she's not one of my regulars. She takes time. But even if it's only once a week or so, it's worth it.

Maybe God is calling me to get published by a Christian agent after all. Hmmmmm.... I might mention this if I query her...

Give Me Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Huddles Masses Yearning for Benches and Foot Massages

We go back home tomorrow. I have officially survived New York. I think I've walked more than a hundred miles these past few days. And that doesn't count all the hours I had to stand on the bus and the subway and the ferries. My feet may never be the same!

We came amid fierce thunder and lightening storms and Brooklyn was hit by flash flooding and wind blew down power lines and uprooted huge trees, so we felt right at home!

We've spent much of our time praying the rain will hold off, and our timing has been very blessed. It poured only once on Sunday, right when we were standing under the overhang of the South Ferry subway stop, and we rode out the storm there. Today every time it rained we happened to be inside somewhere, and when we came out it stopped. All the same, it has been incredibly overcast and grey, and the haze is hanging so low the visibility is nil. Great for walking around and not sweating. Terrible for photographic shots of the city. Most of my landscape photos are a fuzzy gray with indistinct building. Even with a great camera, you can't take fantastic pictures of something that isn't there.

Of course, there were plenty of puddles. So here is the city the way we saw it most often:





It's been a roller coaster emotion trip. I haven't been back here since 9/11 and I get very sad just looking at the city from across the water and thinking, "What skyline is this, because it's not New York." I miss those twin towers. I have a lot of memories there, and even when I get away from the ugly hole in the ground, I can't get away with the lack of them... wherever you are in the city you notice they aren't there.

I do love the American flags though. I don't remember whether or not it was like this before. I suppose that's one of those things you take for granted and just stop seeing, but now I notice. Some cities are all up in arms about the Iraq war, and very anti-Bush, and anti-government. Here, it is still very pro-America.

We ate in a deli right next to ground zero today, which had been remodeled since the towers fell and essentially blasted out the adjoining buildings. A fireman from Ladder Company 10 directly across from ground zero recommended it, so how could we go wrong? In the days immediately after, the restaurant was turned into a medical facility for the rescue workers. Today, the makeshift "medical service" sign spray painted on scrap wood hangs prominently in the deli, along with photos of people that died, letters from businesses in the world trade towers, photos of the wreckage as seen through the doors of the deli, and memorabilia from the rescue workers who came and used the restaurant during that time. It felt almost sacred eating there.

I'll not be sad to leave though. It seems as though people who live in New York breathe the city. It is in their blood and they would never dream of living anywhere else. Me? I think I'd have a heart attack after a year or two. It moves so fast! I'm not that much a country girl, but man it seems frenetic here! And my feet are about to fall off. And it is so noisy.

I never made it to the literary agencies. I planned on stopping by a few office buildings just to see where they were, to get a mental picture of where my book might end up. And maybe take a picture. In a really not-stalkerish kind of way. But I never made it. Too much to do, and after more than forty blocks of walking on Sunday there was no way I was cramming my size six feet into four inch red heels.

So in the end it was a purely family vacation. I did do some writing at night when everyone else was asleep, but for the most part, it's been a vacation from that part of my life too. All fun, but I'll be glad to get back to home and the writing and catching up with my writing groups. I think this time away has stirred some ideas and I am ready to go!