It was pretty much what I thought would happen: my first full novel submission was rejected.
In one way it was worse than I had expected. Temporarily convinced of my own genius (if I wasn’t, just for a moment, I wouldn’t send anything, ever) I hoped, crossing fingers and toes, that they’d want to read the whole thing. They didn’t.
Continue Reading “You write, you edit, you submit, you file the rejection”
I’m looking for markets – publications that my stories might fit, a home for my artistic endeavours. This means that I browse a lot of publication websites, trying to figure out what they want and if what I’ve got is good enough. There are a lot of good markets out there.
But then there are sites that I look at and I’m not sure that I want to submit to them, even if I think my story’s a great fit. Like readers all over the world, I judge the book from the cover. Or the market from the site, anyway. My main turn-offs are:
I want my literary gems to be set in a setting where they can shine. A setting that looks great and is easy to read, where the text stands out and isn’t cluttered with textures or images. One where the editors inspire confidence through their own fluent writing, clear focus and helpful instructions.
When I send my writer’s CV to a publisher or agent, I want them to recognise some of the publication’s I’ve appeared in and I want them to be impressed with – or at least not put off by – the ones they haven’t seen before.
What has this to do with being irrational? I have good, rational reasons for not submitting to a market, don’t I?
Except for the thing about capitalisation. Unmotivated capitalisation irritates me beyond reason.
Last year I achieved five of seven goals. This year, I’ve changed my goals a little and some of last year’s goals, sending a story out at least five times before retiring it for example, is now just part of the process. Likewise, I now assume that if I write a story, I’ll send it somewhere, so writing ten stories implies submitting ten stories. I’ve realised that it’s not realistic to write one per month – some months I don’t write – but ten over the year should be doable, even if I’m working on a novel.
This is what I’d like to achieve this year:
I know what I need to do and it can be summed up like this: write, submit and read. Business as usual, then.
* Two of which already have working titles: Jonah’s Story and Fingers in the Dirt. Watch this space as they get written.
** The first one of these, The Foods of Lara’s Loves, is looking for a market.
*** One for each performance.
Last year, I wanted to get four pieces of writing published. I only managed three. When I analysed possible reasons, the most obvious one was this: I didn’t send anything out for six months.
Not everything you send is accepted, far from it, but if you don’t send stuff, it can’t be accepted. I wish there were pixies that flitted about looking in drawers and scanning hard drives to find pieces whose authors were too shy to submit and moved them from obscurity into the sunny gaze of a willing publisher. But it doesn’t work like that. You have to be your own pixie.
As part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh City of Literature arranged for writers to meet with industry experts – an agent, a publisher, a creative writing coach, a publicist and an Edinburgh literary expert. We got 15 minutes with our chosen expert on a sunny Sunday morning. My expert was Francis Bickmore, Editorial Director at Canongate Books, a well-known Edinburgh publishing house. Francis is an experienced editor and has worked with Nick Cave, Yann Martell and other big names. I’d sent him a 500 word writing sample, a writer’s CV and questions. I also sent him some background: my questions were about making writing into a career. Here’s what I learned:
I also asked about the size of their slush-pile and how many new writers they take on. The figures were scary and illustrated how important an agent is. They are the first level of quality control. They are your way in, but also a publisher’s way to filter out a lot of the chaff.
It was an encouraging experience. I know that I’m doing the right things, but have realised that it might take a bit longer to get where I wanted to be than I thought. Never mind. Step the first is to finish my first novel. Bring on September.
I had targets and goals. A plan. It’s been four months since my last update so it’s time to have a hard look at where I am against it.
A couple of months ago I took my plan for the year public to goad myself into sticking to it. It’s time to reflect and see how I’m progressing against my goals.
I have a plan. It’s a five-year plan, sort of, and somewhat fluid, but it helps me figure out where I’m going. For this year, the plan is to:
I’ll let you know how I get on.
Sharing your work is a big step. As children we happily share everything because we know everything we create is brilliant. Over the years, doubt creeps in. Sharing what you’ve written becomes more difficult, it’s too personal: rejection of your work equals rejection of you. Horror!
To deal with the fear that everyone hates you, many of us start disliking a piece the very moment they’ve shared it. I’m quietly proud of my stories until I hand them over to someone else to read. In the millisecond of transfer, from one hand to another, I start disliking the piece. I distance my self from it. It’s OK if everyone hates it because I do too.
Sharing is scary. It’d be nice if we could just sit here, at our keyboards or with our pens, and write. Make art, increasingly beautiful, until it flowers into a work of such stunning glory we have to share it. (At that point we hope the world will gasp in amazement and give us money.) Then we can go home and start working on our next work of art.
Unfortunately, that’s not good enough in today’s publishing market. It’s a drag but publishers aren’t looking for the next great novel. They are looking for the next profitable novelist. So, as well as writing good stories, we need to prove that we are committed to continuing writing good stories. One isn’t enough. We need to prove that we already have an audience and that we’re willing to put in the work to grow that audience. We need a following, a presence, a publishing history, a platform.
Blogging, networking, reading and submitting to magazines may seem like a distraction from writing. But platform building is part of the work of a contemporary writer and putting it off will make it more difficult to succeed.
I want to succeed so I sit here, at my keyboard, writing about the journey.
I really like this little film about what it takes to write and get published. The writer character feels frighteningly real.
My favourite bit comes at around 2:58. “How many editors do you think Random House will assign to my book? Because it will need a lot of editing. I’m not the best speller.” Watching it is 4:38 minutes well spent.
