The Daily Rejection

[Carleree]

Good job, Hathor! When you're done that, delete the word JUST through the whole thing. That'll get your word count down, too.

[Hathor]

Originally Posted by Carleree

Good job, Hathor! When you're done that, delete the word JUST through the whole thing. That'll get your word count down, too.

Great minds work alike. Looking through all my justs was something I did early on (after axing verys and reallys).

I think the biggest word cutter was using every contraction possible. The second was changing how I formatted em dashes. A close third was eliminating optional thats at the beginning of dependent clauses.

I discovered I have a disturbing tendency to write in the past progressive. Took a hell of a long time to find them all and convert most to the simple past tense.

I've finished the searches I could think of, as well as passages I thought I could tighten a bit. I'm down to 109,000 words. I now have to go through it all sentence-by-sentence to see if I've overlooked superfluous words, phrases, sentences....

Haven't had so much fun since I wrote a 60-page masterpiece at work. My employer said, "Yeah, that's great. But make it 30 pages." That took me longer to do than the original draft.

[Carleree]

My big problem was "for a moment." I cut those out and reduced my MS by 15k. That's a lot of moments.

Polly, pass me a drink. Today sucked as bas yesterday.

[Hathor]

Mustn't forget "now," "then," "in any event," and "at this point"...

I had plenty of "right now," also. As opposed to the "sort of inexactly now" time frame, I guess.

If I took out all the sarcasm, Scotch, swearing, and sexual obsession, I suppose I could really get the word count down

Maybe I should use my four S's as a log line in my query. Oh, Shakespeare, too -- and seppuku. That's six. Strangulation. Seven.

Seems like a drinking game. Let's see -- Shopping. Slutty underwear. A stupid senator. My novel has it all. Cheers!

[Carleree]

Wow, Hathor!

Your novel really does have it all :P

[Drachen Jager]

A little film about rejection to help you get over the humpday blues.

http://videosift.com/video/Rejected-...el-Commercials

[Hathor]

Originally Posted by Drachen Jager

A little film about rejection to help you get over the humpday blues.

http://videosift.com/video/Rejected-...el-Commercials

I think the WTF tag was appropriate. I am a banana.

Did I ever post this here? The title is SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A NOVEL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fc-crEFDw

[adm]

I E-mailed a query at midnight and received a reject before noon.

[Carleree]

That happens to the best of as, ADM.

I was hot that one week, and nothing but rejections since. I think so far I've racked up 9. If I didn't have those two fulls out, I'd be crying by now. Instead I'm having chocolate. C'est la vie!

[triceretops]

Got a rejection from a medium-sized independent that said they're publishing schedule was filled for the next three years.

Hmmm...okay, then would please shut down your request for submissions so neither of us waste our time...please? Then I'll keep lovin' ya.

Tri

[Carleree]

I agree, Tri. Completely.

[Filigree]

Seconded, Tri. Maybe their name should go up in the Bewares & Recs forum, so people know to check before they submit.

[Hathor]

I know, sometimes they think writers should be psychic.

[Carleree]

Another request for a full. It certainly makes those pesky rejections seem rather silly.

[Hathor]

Originally Posted by Carleree

Another request for a full. It certainly makes those pesky rejections seem rather silly.

Woo hoo! It does, indeed.

[Chachant]

After rewriting my query several times, I felt my current version was solid. I queried 10 agents on 2/13 and on 2/16 I received three "Dear Author" within two hours. The day before I received a "Dear" followed by my last name, which is a nice alternative to the "Dear Author."

At any rate, I think I'll be visiting Query Letter Hell soon, which I should have done in the first place.

[Carleree]

Originally Posted by Chachant

After rewriting my query several times, I felt my current version was solid. I queried 10 agents on 2/13 and on 2/16 I received three "Dear Author" within two hours. The day before I received a "Dear" followed by my last name, which is a nice alternative to the "Dear Author."

At any rate, I think I'll be visiting Query Letter Hell soon, which I should have done in the first place.

Good plan. I had 3 versions of my letter, the last I perfected in QLH. I didn't get anywhere with my first two letters, but this last one did the trick. It's tough to hang out in QLH, you have to be brave, but it works. It definitely works. Chin up, you can do it.

[Chachant]

Originally Posted by Carleree

Good plan. I had 3 versions of my letter, the last I perfected in QLH. I didn't get anywhere with my first two letters, but this last one did the trick. It's tough to hang out in QLH, you have to be brave, but it works. It definitely works. Chin up, you can do it.

I'd much rather hear my query is to the eye what salt is to a wound than receive another "Dear Author" letter, that's for sure. At least the former I can fix. I can't do much about the latter than sit there and hope the words will rearrange themselves to read "I'd like to see more."

[adm]

Originally Posted by Carleree

Another request for a full. It certainly makes those pesky rejections seem rather silly.

Congrats!

[Carleree]

Thank you, today has been good.

This agent tends to read fulls and make a decision fast. Usually under two weeks O_o

[Chachant]

Originally Posted by Carleree

Thank you, today has been good.

This agent tends to read fulls and make a decision fast. Usually under two weeks O_o

I forgot to offer my congrats. Hopefully within 2 weeks we'll see, "I've been offered representation." Although, I'm sure that period will be replaced with an exclamation mark. Possibly several.

[Quickbread]

Originally Posted by Carleree

Another request for a full. It certainly makes those pesky rejections seem rather silly.

You're definitely on a roll! Congrats!

[pollymilton]

Woohoo! Proud of you, girl!

[carefulwithwords]

Congrats AGAIN Caralee! wtg!


I got a reject on the partial I sent to the agent I didn't really like because he seemed dim-witted in our exchange about my method of sending the partial since I was overseas. I found out after I sent the partial that he doesn't rep overseas writers. It was a form R, excluding the following sentence:

"...Also, the dual point-of-view might be a good one, yet I feel that the age differences of the main characters will pose a problem for many editors who, too, might wonder if readers will want to spend time reading about a much younger character in an adult novel."

You know, back when I was having that really dumb correspondence with him, I told myself to be prepared for an equally dumb rejection. But I still wasn't prepared.

I will spare you guys the list I complied this afternoon of Great Literary Characters Who Happen to Be Children.

I want to write him back and say:
Don't you have any shame? Don't you take your job and your power seriously? What if I had taken you seriously? What if I had completely rewritten my novel to support your supposed theory that adults don't want to read about children or rather that editors don't buy books with child protags? --Following your logic that books like The Kite Runner, Memoirs of a Geisha, or Lord of the Flies are not books adults enjoy reading or editors want to buy. Would you have shame then? Did you think you were doing me a favor by personalizing your rejection with such completely asinine and potentially damaging non-opinions. In the future, why don't you do writers a favor and stick to a form. That way, I can tell myself you probably didn't read it or it just wasn't your thing. Instead of concluding I just wasted $16 bucks on a dinosaur agent with poor reading comprehension skills.

But instead. I posted it here.

[carefulwithwords]

AND ANOTHER THING: When practically the FIRST line of my query specifies my one of the dual narrators as 13 and CLEARLY indicates that it is an adult novel, Why would you request that I go through the expense and time of sending you a SNAIL MAIL partial if you don't think editors want to buy books with children protags?!!!?

This guy owes me $16.