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Some ruminations of rejection letters...
Thursday, September 18, 2003I wanted to talk more about the rejection letter process. It's not anything against the publisher...I'm not mad at the places that rejected me, anymore than I'd be mad at the sky for raining. (Well, that's a silly thing, since I *love* rain, but you get what I'm saying.) I appreciate the time and effort the lady obviously went through to write the letter. The problem is, what do you *do* about it? Now, I've been a "pro" for a while, and hung around pros...(I call myself that because I have a huge pile of agent, Balancing Act, and short story/poetry rejections, and have been doing this for quite a few years. I've even sold stuff, so I can call myself a pro...Because this is my profession.) and I know the first thing everyone is going to say: (all together, now) Send it somewhere else. But see, while that works, that does not silence the thoughts. Even though you have faith in yourself, you look at the letter and think, her points sound pretty valid. You wonder if you should make the changes. You know she won't take it if you do...She said as much...But are you crippling yourself by not making these changes? Or are you slowing yourself down? Will another editor say something different? In short, should you take what she said to heart, or file it for reference and move on? If you do the latter, are you being small minded, foolish? For me, I've decided to be thankful that she took the time to write the comments...after a few more rejections (this is the first, for crying out loud) then I can sit down and compare notes, especially if I've been lucky enough to have other people make comments. Then I can do a re-write. For now, just start sending queries, and keep going. I think the most important thing for a writer to keep is their forward momentum. Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:45 PM 0 comments |