Ouch! That Hurts!

Rejection. It’s part of a writer’s life.

There are lots of different reasons for a publisher rejecting a manuscript:

1.     They have just published a similar book

2.    They don’t publish picture books (do your research before submitting)

3.    They don’t publish fantasy or mysteries or books about holidays (again, do your research)

4.    Your word length is too long or too short (check those submission guidelines)

5.    Your manuscript is sloppy (spelling mistakes, page layout etc.) – one of the easiest things to correct

6.    Your characters are one dimensional or stereotyped

7.    Your dialogue is flat and lacks sparkle

8.    You rely too much on coincidence

9.    Your opening chapter did not compel the editor to keep reading

10.  You lack a satisfying resolution.

That’s only a start. But you can probably group all rejections into two categories:

1.     Your manuscript is not up the publisher’s standards

2.    Your manuscript does not meet the needs of the publisher.

General George S. Patton said,

          “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”

Rejection definitely feels like hitting bottom.

Here are some rejection stories to encourage you to bounce back:

Agatha Christie had 5 years of rejection before going on to achieve sales in excess of 2 billion (only Shakespeare has sold more)

JK Rowling had 12 rejections for the first Harry Potter book which included the advice to “get a day job because you have little chance of making money in children’s books.)

Louis l”Amour had 200 rejections and ended up with 330 million dollars in sales.

Dr. Seuss was told his book was “too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”

Chicken Soup for the Soul was rejected 140 times.

L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables was rejected 5 times.

Beatrix Potter was rejected so many times for Peter Rabbit that she ended up self publishing. She was later picked up by a publisher and her sales reached 45 million dollars.

Margaret Mitchells’ Gone with the Wind was rejected 30 times.

 Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight was rejected 12 times and ended up being on the New York Times bestseller list for 91 weeks.

The Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times and won the Newbery Medal.

Help by Kathryn Stockett was rejected 60 times.

Alex Haley’s Roots was rejected 200 times and made 1.5 million dollars in sales in its first 7 months.

My record is 26 rejections for a manuscript that is dear to my heart and still unsold. Some of the rejections have included constructive critique and I continue to revise and resubmit.

So, next time a rejection hurts, remember you are not alone!

RUTH REMEMBERED DROWNING

                            

In an earlier blog I listed some of my favourite opening sentences form kids’ novels. The sentences below come from adult novels and all of them made me want to keep reading. (An added bonus of scanning through the books on my shelves for these opening lines was discovering a lot of old treasures that I want to reread!)

The strangest thing about my wife’s return from the dead was how other people reacted.  (The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler)

Ruth remembered drowning.  (Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwartz) 

The world began to fall apart at nine in the evening. (The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell)

 

The girl was the first to hear the loud pounding on the door. (Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

I seem to have trouble dying. (The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill)

He found the body on the forty-third day of his walk. (Careless in Red by Elizabeth George)

On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut Public Library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable.

(I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb)

By mistake Larry Weller took someone else’s tweed jacket instead of his own and it wasn’t till he jammed his hand in the pocket that he knew something was wrong. (Larry’s Party by Carol Shields)

It was as black in the closet as old blood. (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

I recall with utter clarity the first great shock of my life. (Trinity by Leon Uris)

I have an ingrained fear of auctions dating back to the third year of my life. (The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float by Farley Mowat)

This last one is really more than one sentence but it promises you a fun read.

These are my New Year’s Resolutions:

1.     I will help the blind across the road.

2.    2. I will hang my trousers up.

3.    I will put the sleeves back on my records.

4.    I will not start smoking.

5.    I will stop squeezing my spots.

6.    I will be kind to the dog.

7.    I will help the poor and ignorant.

8.    After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.

(The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend)

 

 

A CUP OF TEA SOLVES EVERYTHING

My yoga teacher asks the class at the beginning of every session to repeat the words

I will let go of expectation.

I will let go of judgment.

I will let go of competition.

It’s a powerful way to start our yoga poses. I believe it’s a great way to start a day of writing as well.

We set up so many mental roadblocks when we write.

We are afraid of rejection.

We are afraid of getting a bad review.

We are afraid of not getting a review.

We are afraid of selling too few books.

We are afraid that we have no imagination.

We are afraid that we are just not good enough.

And if you forget for a while, there is someone sitting on your shoulder while you write, whispering all your doubts and fears in your ear.

It can be very hard to overcome these obstacles but you have to because they can paralyze your writing.

Nigel Watts says in Write a Novel and Get it Published that “Like little squirmy things that live under rocks, our negative beliefs don’t like the light of day: they are at home in the dark where they are unchallenged.”

So challenge them.

Along with expectation, judgment and competition, jealousy can rear its ugly head.

In bird by bird Anne Lamont says that “jealousy is one of the occupational hazards of being a writer.” She laments the writers “who will get the place on the bestseller list, the movie sales, the huge advances, and the nice big glossy pictures in the national magazines where the photo editors have airbrushed out the excessively long eyeteeth, the wrinkles and the horns. They will buy houses, big houses, or second houses that are actually as nice, or nicer, than the first one. And you will want to throw yourself down the back stairs, especially if the person is a friend.

Well. We’ve all felt like that. 

So what do we do about it? I don’t have any brilliant solutions but I do think little rituals can help. Keep inspirational sayings posted on cards where you can see them easily.  If you have already published a book, sit back and read a chapter and tell yourself you can do it again. Approach your writing in small steps, one word at a time. Laugh out loud when you write a funny line.

If all else fails, make yourself a strong cup of tea. I have an oversized tea cup with the words A cup of tea solves everything written around the rim. It helps.

There is a French expression

 Vouloir c’est pouvoir.   To want to is to be able to.

That’s an inspiring thought. I read it every day on a card on my bulletin board. Because I do want to. Despite the fears and doubts I want to keep writing.

 

 

TREAT YOURSELF!

 

When I’ve been particularly disciplined with my word quota, or if I just need a pick-me-up, I head to the nearest stationary store. There’s nothing like a stack of brand new recipe cards, a fluorescent highlighter or a fresh stack of yellow legal pads to make me feel that the life of a writer has its perks! And the post it notes! Need I say more? They come in every possible size, colour and shape and are guaranteed to brighten up any writing corner! (And they are surprisingly useful!)

On the subject of yellow legal pads, I was amused to see they rated several pages of discussion in one of my favourite writing books, Page Fright by Harry Bruce.

Here are some thoughts on yellow legal pads from Page Fright . . .

Susan Sontag called them “the fetish of American writers.”

They had the undying loyalty of writers such as Beverly Cleary (the creator of the beloved Ramona Quimby books for kids), and Nelson DeMille  (whose thrillers have sold more than thirty million copies.)

Louis Auchincloss (who at 98 years old was still writing) wrote 47 books of fiction and 17 books of nonfiction on yellow legal pads.

Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind) spent 10 years writing on yellow legal pads.

William Styron was a fan and often brought one to the dinner table.

 

John Irving wrote 11 novels and 2 books of non-fiction with a fountain pen on yellow legal pads

Lawyer John Grisham wrote his first novel A Time to Kill in longhand on yellow legal pads, working often on the steps of the courthouse.

What is it about yellow? It seems that many writers choose yellow paper, even if it’s not a legal pad.  Poet Conrad Aiken said, “I preferred yellow paper because its not so responsible looking.” Woody Allen, Elmore Leonard, Isaac Asimov and Malcolm Lowry all wrote on yellow paper.

Alexandre Dumas wrote his poetry on yellow paper, his non-fiction on rose coloured paper and his historical novels on blue paper.

The idea is that white paper can be daunting. Cheap yellow paper (or napkins) is friendlier and less intimidating. I once took an art course for non-artistic people and the instructor had us draw with black felt pens on printed newspaper for the first month for that very reason (it was also impossible to erase anything!

Rose-coloured paper? Sounds interesting. I think a trip to Staples is next on my list!

Favourite Kid’s Book of the Week:

The Higher Power of Lucky By Susan Patron

A winner of the Newbery Medal!

This heartwarming book is the first in a trilogy. 

Amazon: Lucky, age ten, can't wait another day. The meanness gland in her heart and the crevices full of questions in her brain make running away from Hard Pan, California (population 43), the rock-bottom only choice she has.

It's all Brigitte's fault -- for wanting to go back to France. Guardians are supposed to stay put and look after girls in their care! Instead Lucky is sure that she'll be abandoned to some orphanage in Los Angeles where her beloved dog, HMS Beagle, won't be allowed. She'll have to lose her friends Miles, who lives on cookies, and Lincoln, future U.S. president (maybe) and member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. Just as bad, she'll have to give up eavesdropping on twelve-step anonymous programs where the interesting talk is all about Higher Powers. Lucky needs her own -- and quick.

But she hadn't planned on a dust storm.

Or needing to lug the world's heaviest survival-kit backpack into the desert.

It’s interesting to note that the book caused a bit of a scandal in some circles because it has the word scrotum in it! I believe some schools considered banning it!

FRIEND OR FOE?

 

 

I’ve been writing long enough to remember typing my first manuscripts on a manual typewriter. Progressing to an electric typewriter with a limited capacity for memory was an exciting day! Now I look back at that and shudder. Like most writers today I treasure my word processing program. Revising on a typewriter was difficult. Even a small change meant retyping the whole page. And cut and paste was quite literally done with scissors and glue.

In Page Fright,  Harry Bruce says that writers who turned to the word processor in its early days were like religious converts, their eyes gleaming with wonder. He quotes novelist Frank Conroy who said, “God looked down at the writers and said, ‘I haven’t done anything for these people for a long time, hundreds of years, so I’m going to make up for it.’  “

There were skeptics too. The American writer William Zinsser wondered why he should change from equipment that had served him well for decades. He said, “Why risk writing into a humming winking box that, owing to one slip of one finger, might destroy his entire masterpiece-in-progress?”  He changed his mind quickly though when he tried one. “Real sentences began to appear on the screen, one after another. Then I had a real paragraph. Then I started another paragraph. Soon I had a second paragraph! I was writing!”

He went on to say, “There’s no kind of tinkering that you can’t do – and undo – instantly. When you finish your revisions, the machine will paginate your entire article and the printer will type it while you go and have a beer.”

Leon Edel, American biographer, said, “I didn’t like the machine’s insolence. It tried to make me its slave.”

Tom Sharpe agreed. “That bloody cursor blinking at me on the word processor screen is awful. I mean it’s blink, blink, blink. Well, screw this bastard.”

Novelist Josephine Hart said, “The machines seem to have a mind of their own.”

Martin Amis said, “The little cursor, or whatever it’s called, that wobbles around the middle of the screen falsely gives you the impression that you’re thinking. Even when you’re not.”

Humorist P.J. O’Rourke said he refused “to have some pubescent twerp with his mom’s earring in his tongue, who combs his hair with Redi-Whip and has an Ani DiFranco tattoo on his shin, come show me how a computer works.”

I think any writer that uses a computer has at least one story of losing a day’s or even a work’s week. There is no more hideous feeling. We all know the cardinal rule – back up, back up, back up but somehow mistakes happen.  (I save my manuscript in two places and at the end of each day email it to myself as well. I figure my lap top and memory sticks could break down but I can always access my email.)

Journalist Robert Fulford has told a story of an “American novelist who switched on his computer one morning and discovered to his horror that the fifty thousand words he’d spent months writing had simply vanished. When he tried to recover them, happy faces invaded his screen. Enraged, he punched a wall and broke his knuckles.”

Would I go back to a manual typewriter? Never. But I try to stay on the good side of my computer!

Favourite Kid’s Book of the Week:

Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer Holm

The opening drew me in: “Everyone thinks children are as sweet as Necco Wafers but I’ve lived long enough to know the truth. Kids are rotten. The only difference between grown-ups and kids is that grown-ups go to jail for murder. Kids get away with it.”

Who could resist reading more?

Amazon: In Jennifer L. Holm's New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor winning middle grade historical fiction novel, life isn't like the movies. But then again, 11-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple. She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935 and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida to live with relatives she's never met. Florida's like nothing Turtle's ever seen before though. It's hot and strange, full of rag tag boy cousins, family secrets, scams, and even buried pirate treasure! Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she's spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways. Filled with adventure, humor and heart, Turtle in Paradise is an instant classic both boys and girls with love.

THE MIGHTY PEN

 

I’m trying something new with the current book I’m working on – I’m writing it long hand!  I’ve always typed my first drafts on the computer so this is a big mental change for me. So far, it’s going better than I thought!

I’ve always struggled with that whole concept of writing “crappy” first drafts – just letting the ideas flow, not being judgmental, allowing the characters to take over and not to polish etc etc etc.  I tend to labour over my first drafts, trying to perfect as I go along. I wanted to see if I could free myself up.

So – longhand. I’m using a very fat exercise book, writing on the right hand side, single spaced (to reduce my desire to edit and change things), leaving the left hand side blank (so if I really have to I can edit and change things!) It’s working for me. I reach my daily word quota without too much difficulty. I’m writing in the first person so sometimes I pretend I’m writing a letter. 

My original idea was to write the whole draft before I went to the computer but the thought of doing all that typing at the end is depressing! So every morning I type up yesterday’s work, not allowing myself to do any major editing. That way I can check the word count and get a better feel for pacing.

I love the fact that it is so portable – I can take my exercise book and pen anywhere. This is probably the worst first draft I’ve ever written but it’s also the most fun – and I’m finding that ideas and new characters and plot turns are popping up everywhere.

Some thoughts on writing in long hand (taken from Page Fright by Harry Bruce):

“You have to communicate sensation, the belief in what life is, what it’s about, and you do it through learning how to handle a pen. That’s why I have always felt uncomfortable having some piece of machinery between me and the paper – even a typewriter, let alone a computer, which just gives me the horrors!”   (Joseph Conrad)

“I’ve got to feel the pencil and see the words at the end of the pencil.” (Faulkner)

“I do not go near a word processor, or even a typewriter. I cannot imagine how thinking can take place on these awkward machines. . . Why not use one’s mind in the old way with pens, paper, notebooks etc. instead of dazzling one’s eyes staring at a glass square which separates one from one’s thoughts  and gives them a premature air of completeness?”” (Iris Murdoch)

“It’s fatal to get ahead of yourself. Typing, you can take a wrong turn. But if you do it slowly, writing a foolscap page or two a day, in a year you are all done – you can’t rush it.” (Paul Theroux)

“I like the slowness of writing by hand.” (Susan Sontag)

“I used to work entirely on the typewriter. But this last book I did sitting in a lawn chair and writing by hand. Then I typed it out. Much slower of course. But I think it’s a pretty good method. It does pretty well.” (P.G. Wodehouse)

As soon as all this snow melts and spring comes, I’m going to give that lawn chair a try!

 

INSIDE OUT

                                         

 

You need to know your character inside out. You need to know what he thinks, dreams, fears and loves. You need to know if he has red hair or brown hair. You need to know what he eats for breakfast.

One way is to fill out a character profile or checklist. There are lots of forms available on the internet or in books. Some writers like to fill them out before they begin writing. I’ve tried it but, to be honest, get bogged down and bored pretty quickly. But I do find a profile very useful to fill out as I go along and even more so after I have finished the first draft.

I’ve borrowed from several different profiles and created my own, in the form of questions. It’s what I use when I create a character who is a child (an adult profile looks a little different.) I’ve written it with “he” but of course this can be used with girls too.

What is his name?

Where was he born? How old is he? When is his birthday?

What does he look like (height, weight, hair and eye colour etc.)?

What is his ethnic background?

Who is in his immediate family (the family he lives with)? Who is in his extended family?

What is his relationship with members of his family?

What other significant adults are in his life?

Who are his friends? What does he like to do with his friends? What do he and his friends fight about?

Where does he live? Does he like where he lives? Who are his neighbours? Does he know his neighbours?

What grade is he in at school? Does he like school? What are his favourite subjects? What subjects does he disike? What kind of marks does he get? Who is his favourite teacher? Why?

Is he ever in trouble at school? What for?

Does he like to read? If so, what kind of books?

Does he like music? If so, what kind of music?

Does he like sports? Which sports? Does he belong to any teams?

Does he take lessons outside of school?

What are his favourite TV shows? Movies?

Does he have any pets?

What are his chores? Does he get an allowance?

Has he ever travelled to another country? Where?

Is he outgoing or shy? Friendly or aloof? Bold or fearful? A risk taker or cautious? Social or a loner? Selfish or thoughtful? Kind or mean? A leader or a follower?

What does he dream about?

What embarrasses him?

What frightens him?

What impresses him?

 WHAT DOES HE WANT?

The last question is key to developing motivation in your character. You’ll probably think of lots more questions to add.

Gillian Roberts says in You Can Write A Mystery that “a character can do anything you like if he has a reason and the reason comes out of his history.”

A character profile is one way to develop that history.