Weekend Update

[lagilman]

Some Ups, Some Downs.

Went up to the Boston area to see an old college friend get married (finally!). Very nice ceremony, althgough the bride is Born-Again and the service was rather pointedly heavy on God. Nothing wrong with that.... until it starts to make the non-Born Agains in attendence feel uncomfortable. Did nobody tell the minster that the groom had a Motley Assortment of friends?

Ah well. So they are married, and they look happy, and the party was a blast, despite only knowing the groom and a groomswoman (another old college friend). Got to dance and flirt and drink well-made G&Ts. All good things.

Managed to get some client-work done on the way up, and was going to get some writing done this afternoon, but the e-mail brought several rejects of the "well written we like your style but.." type.

Don't you hate those? It's like being First Runner-Up, or the best female friend of the guy you have a crush on. Everyone thinks you should be happy with that, so you have to smile, but inside you're wailing "why not me?"

*grump*

I can only take so much rejection in one day, and my quota is full, okay? Even feline headbutts for attention aren't making me feel good right now.

Ah well. Pick up, brush off, tape heart back together. I shall pack the stories up and send them out again, and then see if I can find a nice angsty, painful section in the W-i-P that I can vent into.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Ah yes. Hear my plaintive cry: "If it's so damned good, why the hell won't you pay me for it?"

I don't mind rejections with reasons, or even form rejects, but the ones that star "I really liked this--" are hard to take.

Sigh.

Once more into the breach.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I find the 'We love your writing, but if it was just a little different, we'd buy it' ones the worst, mostly because they seem to intimate that you could re-write it to sell to them, but the actual invitation to begin the relationship isn't... quite... there.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes. But those ones at least indicate a *problem* with the writing.

They give you an angle on something maybe you could fix.

The ones that are like "I really really like you, but let's just be friends--" are more frustrating for me.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*nod* I'm all for comments like "The ending didn't work for me," or "The characters didn't grab me (alas)." The "If it was just a little different," ones are distressingly vague. Though I sympathize with them for not quite knowing what's wrong. The editor who can pinpoint what's not working and tell me about it is gold, even if that reason comes in a rejection letter that bars the gates. :)

"Let's be friends--" Yeah... those hurt. Opportunities missed!

Ah well. That's why we turn around and write new stories. :)

(This is a roundabout way of saying we feel your pain, suricattus! You sound in need of chocolate.)

[janni.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the ones that don't hint at a problem that needs to be fixed, that maybe even out and out say there isn't a problem to be fixed.

The ones that say, basically, "There's nothing wrong with this story, I just don't like it."

"Let's just be friends ... no, no, it's not your fault, it's just me."

[lagilman]

The breach and I are heartily tired of each other at this point.

"Here I come again."
"What, again?"
"Yeah, sorry about that."
"You can't go somewhere else?"
"Nope, you're pretty much it."


And yeah, it's the vagueness that kills. What should I do to make myself more appealing? What do you want me to do/say/be? How can I make the story over so that you will love it?

It's like The Rules for Fiction Writers. "Love me, or don't, but make up your damn mind 'cause this is pretty much it" is healthy in interpersonal relationships, but it doesn't get the story sold. And how sad-making is that?

Argh. Being fist runner up means you were at least in the running. And sometimes "Not right for our list" just means "not right for our list." These are the truths we hate to hear.

They're good stories, damn it. They've been thisclose everywhere they've been sent. I begin to doubt myself mightily...

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*cackle*

You and the Breach just made me snarf tea.

And so true. I just packaged up my favorite novelette again, the one I nearly sold to 3SF, and which has gotten lovely rejections from Ellen and Gordon and now Sheila Williams... and I'm sending it to New Genre, because I like it too much to trunk it, and it's nearly 10K, and *sigh.* So off to the semipros it goes.

I want people to read it, dammit.

And meanwhile, I know intellectually that there is in fact more good short fiction out there than there are spaces for it. And so it goes.

They are good stories, and if nothing else, they have a future as the lead stories in your future short fiction collections. "A collection of ten stories by award-winning author LAG, including two never before seen in print!"

Hey, if John Varley can do it, so can you.