By Russel D McLean
I've talked about rejection before, I'm sure. But its on my mind as I sit here in my brand new office, having finally completed the move that began in November. I'm in a new city, in a new flat (after living for a month in The Literary Critic's old place, we've now found ourselves a Gothic Monstrosity that really is quite marvelous). I've spent the last few days working on the 5th McNee novel (this is the one that ties up a number of ongoing threads - is it the actual last in the series? Goodness only knows, but it certainly takes some themes that have been dangling over the books and finally lays old ghosts to rest) but I've also been unpacking some final boxes.
One of those boxes contained a lot of old rejection slips.
Someone of them are disheartening. Phrases like, "just not exciting enough" and "show don't tell" pop up frequently, especially in the early part of this millennium. But I clearly learned from them. There are three that say, "Submissions have now closed" or "this imprint will be closing" which shows just what good timing I have when it comes to most things.
But then there are others, like a letter from a respected SF editor who says that he doesn't think I would fit on an SF list but should try to go more literary. He gives me a number of names and then those names, when I find the letters, give me names, too. None of them think I'm quite there yet for their list, but they're all massively enthusiastic. Its intriguing to read, and makes me wonder if I should re-do that old "sf" chestnut someday. In fact, I'm already churning over in my mind what I would do to it, now. And I think the result would be a stronger book, although I have to wonder if its the kind of book I am capable of writing. That's always a worry for me, of course. Can my ambition match my ability?
Certainly it wasn't the case with a manuscript that went out to an editor (oh who am I kidding, it was a script, he was a producer - - and he asked for it based on an outline) that came back ripped to shreds and doodled over with crayon. At the bottom of the script is a handwritten note that reads, "As you can, my kids didn't like it, either". It still makes me go ouch. But I can take comfort from the fact that apparently the guy's a bit of a pariah, now. So there's something.
But what I'm thinking looking through the box is how much I've changed as writer over the year. Every rejection taught me something, made me grow. Every piece of advice - the well meant ones, of course - has stayed with me and guided me on my journey. I was not ready to write at 18, 20, 23. At 24 I got a break but there are still a lot of rejections between then and the publication of The Good Son to remind me that you don't just leap from not published to published, from bad to good. You make mistakes. You refine your approach. You soak up the world around you. You find your voice.
And you don't let it stagnate.
I'd like to think that in another ten years, I'll look back at stuff I'm doing now and see the change from here to then. I'll be proud - I'm still proud of a lot of what I produced back on those days, even if I'd never actually allow it to be published in that state... yes, the people who rejected me were mostly right to do so - of my work, but I'll be able to see how I've evolved and changed.
Hopefully for the better.
Showing posts with label rejections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rejections. Show all posts
Friday, January 10, 2014
Friday, August 6, 2010
"I regret to inform you..."
By Russel D McLean
One of the joys of writing has been and will always be the rejection letter.
I know some people will think I’m crazy, but rejection is the very thing that drives a writer to do better. All the best writers have gone through it. Even after they got their break. James Lee Burke went through a long dry spell. He couldn’t “sell ice water in Hades” according to an interview he gave with the writer John Connolly. 14 years of rejection. 111 refusals to show interest in The Lost Get Back Boogie.
But it builds you.
Here’s Burke again:
“Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.”
Oh, sing that.
Because its true. Rejection makes you look long and hard at yourself and your work. And sometimes you’ll be forced to admit you made a mistake. And other times you’ll realise what’s wrong.
And sometimes you’ll just tough it out.
I talk a lot about my rejection letters. I got a lot down the years. I had one editor forget to reject me until after the collection I’d submitted to came out. One agent sent me an email after 15 minutes to say he was sure I wasn’t going to be for him.
One editor compared my writing to that of that famous playwright Ernie Wise:
My favourite rejection, of course, came shredded through the post, the original manuscript covered with crayon doodles. I looked in vain for a slip to explain what had happened. And then at the bottom of the shredded query letter:
As you can see, my kids didn’t like it either.
Lovely.
Painful?
Yes. But that’s the point of rejection. It prepares you for many realities of the writing world, including those lovely Amazon/GoodReads reviewers who aren’t going to get what you’re doing. Yes, even after publication some readers are going to reject you. No writer is loved universally. Trust me on this. Even just listening to readers in a bookshop, you begin to wonder why anyone would subject themselves to the judgements of others.
But rejection is good. Listen to that Burke quote again. No one can win all the time. And the more we fail the more determined we become to do better.
I once papered my student bedroom wall with rejection letters. I still have them all in boxes. Every once in a while I look at them.
And yes, even now they get the occasional new friend.
Because no one said this writing gig was easy.
But if you can cope with that side of it, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
One of the joys of writing has been and will always be the rejection letter.
I know some people will think I’m crazy, but rejection is the very thing that drives a writer to do better. All the best writers have gone through it. Even after they got their break. James Lee Burke went through a long dry spell. He couldn’t “sell ice water in Hades” according to an interview he gave with the writer John Connolly. 14 years of rejection. 111 refusals to show interest in The Lost Get Back Boogie.
But it builds you.
Here’s Burke again:
“Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.”
Oh, sing that.
Because its true. Rejection makes you look long and hard at yourself and your work. And sometimes you’ll be forced to admit you made a mistake. And other times you’ll realise what’s wrong.
And sometimes you’ll just tough it out.
I talk a lot about my rejection letters. I got a lot down the years. I had one editor forget to reject me until after the collection I’d submitted to came out. One agent sent me an email after 15 minutes to say he was sure I wasn’t going to be for him.
One editor compared my writing to that of that famous playwright Ernie Wise:
My favourite rejection, of course, came shredded through the post, the original manuscript covered with crayon doodles. I looked in vain for a slip to explain what had happened. And then at the bottom of the shredded query letter:
As you can see, my kids didn’t like it either.
Lovely.
Painful?
Yes. But that’s the point of rejection. It prepares you for many realities of the writing world, including those lovely Amazon/GoodReads reviewers who aren’t going to get what you’re doing. Yes, even after publication some readers are going to reject you. No writer is loved universally. Trust me on this. Even just listening to readers in a bookshop, you begin to wonder why anyone would subject themselves to the judgements of others.
But rejection is good. Listen to that Burke quote again. No one can win all the time. And the more we fail the more determined we become to do better.
I once papered my student bedroom wall with rejection letters. I still have them all in boxes. Every once in a while I look at them.
And yes, even now they get the occasional new friend.
Because no one said this writing gig was easy.
But if you can cope with that side of it, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Friday, August 28, 2009
"Dear Sir Or Madam, Won't You Read My Book?"
By Russel D McLean
I’ve been trying to remember when I reached the point of no return.
One of the most difficult questions I’ve been asked – second only perhaps to “where do you get your ideas?” – is “Why did you want to become a writer?”
The best answer I’ve come up with so far is that I figured it was indoor work with no heavy lifting.
And I admit, that’s part of the appeal.
But it’s a tough question, because for me creating fiction always just been something I did. When I was a kid, playing with army figures and all the rest of it, I have distinct memories of creating narratives and characters. Somewhere my mum probably still has a copy of the “diary” they made us keep in primary school where I wrote week long serials which had clear beginnings, middles and ends and absolutely no basis in reality.
I have always loved stories. Becoming a writer, immersing myself in fiction completely, was probably a natural step.
That’s the best reason I can think of as to why I pursued this gig.
When I was younger, my dad made some money selling short stories that were broadcast on radio 4. What always struck me as strange was the idea that they paid people to make stuff up, to do what I was always doing inside my head; creating fanciful narratives that I knew weren’t true but that I wanted to believe in.
When I hit thirteen or so, I remember reading in Doctor Who Magazine about the “New Adventures” series of Doctor Who novels and how they encouraged submissions from new writers.
At sixteen I worked out how you submit to publishers. The internet – still in its early days, I guess, as a medium for mass communication – helped here. I remember making frequent trips to a cyber-café in Edinburgh very specifically to find Virgin Publishing’s submission guidelines. I learned very quickly that you do not type “Virgin Submission Guidelines” into an internet search engine.
I was also devouring the script columns of J Michael Straczynski in Writer’s Digest, to which my dad then had a subscription, and realising that, wow, people were getting paid good money to make things up. And I figure if they could do it, maybe I had a crack. I didn’t have too many other useful skills and although I was figuring on acting as a career I was never the type to be willingly up front and centre. Being a writer seemed a good way to be creative and still not have to “perform” in front of a crowd. I could sit in the background and take the focus off me. Writing is the perfect career, I reckon, for the extroverted introvert. You get to show off and still retain your privacy.
The point of no return came when I was seventeen. Virgin were no longer doing The New Adventures. My submission was returned unread with a note that said they could not pursue the series any longer due to licensing problems with the Dr Who brand. But they were about to start their own line of SF novels, so, ya know, feel free to submit for that. Took me about a year, I reckon to write the 80k novel, THE STARS OF TOMORRROW, first in a planned trilogy that really borrowed far too heavily from Babylon 5 (with some Star Trek style temporal anomalies thrown in for good measure). But that novel earned me my first positive rejection letter. My first rejection letter ever. It was a form with ticks and comments, but what it told me was this:
I had the voice of a published author.
I could create coherent characters.
My plotting was logical and consistent.
However,
I borrowed far too heavily from established themes and ideas (ie, Straczynski coulda probably sued me for plagiarism)
and
I relied too much on coincidence to move the story and characters forward.
As far as rejections letters go, it was beautiful. That they didn’t hate it was good enough for me. I figured, I’m young, I got time to get better. I also never told ‘em my age. When I first started submitting, I never did that, because I didn’t want anyone to go easy on me. The writing, I knew even then, had to speak for itself.
So, yeah, that letter was my tipping point. If it hadn’t been for that letter I might not have kept going. Had my first letter been like one I later received, my manuscript sent return postage covered in angry crayon scrawls with a wee note at the bottom of the title page saying, “As you can see, my kids didn’t like it either” or the one that said, “Your work reminds me a little of Ernie Wise and that little play what he wrote” I probably wouldn’t have kept fighting to improve my work and to grow as a writer.
That was the moment when I knew I wanted to be a writer, when I was seventeen. When I realised that it was possible to make what seemed like a daydream become something real if I just put in the hard work and paid attention to constructive criticism (and only later would I learn to ignore the mean spirited stuff). And if I could do that, then maybe I really could achieve the dream of indoor work with no heavy lifting.
I’ve been trying to remember when I reached the point of no return.
One of the most difficult questions I’ve been asked – second only perhaps to “where do you get your ideas?” – is “Why did you want to become a writer?”
The best answer I’ve come up with so far is that I figured it was indoor work with no heavy lifting.
And I admit, that’s part of the appeal.
But it’s a tough question, because for me creating fiction always just been something I did. When I was a kid, playing with army figures and all the rest of it, I have distinct memories of creating narratives and characters. Somewhere my mum probably still has a copy of the “diary” they made us keep in primary school where I wrote week long serials which had clear beginnings, middles and ends and absolutely no basis in reality.
I have always loved stories. Becoming a writer, immersing myself in fiction completely, was probably a natural step.
That’s the best reason I can think of as to why I pursued this gig.
When I was younger, my dad made some money selling short stories that were broadcast on radio 4. What always struck me as strange was the idea that they paid people to make stuff up, to do what I was always doing inside my head; creating fanciful narratives that I knew weren’t true but that I wanted to believe in.
When I hit thirteen or so, I remember reading in Doctor Who Magazine about the “New Adventures” series of Doctor Who novels and how they encouraged submissions from new writers.
At sixteen I worked out how you submit to publishers. The internet – still in its early days, I guess, as a medium for mass communication – helped here. I remember making frequent trips to a cyber-café in Edinburgh very specifically to find Virgin Publishing’s submission guidelines. I learned very quickly that you do not type “Virgin Submission Guidelines” into an internet search engine.
I was also devouring the script columns of J Michael Straczynski in Writer’s Digest, to which my dad then had a subscription, and realising that, wow, people were getting paid good money to make things up. And I figure if they could do it, maybe I had a crack. I didn’t have too many other useful skills and although I was figuring on acting as a career I was never the type to be willingly up front and centre. Being a writer seemed a good way to be creative and still not have to “perform” in front of a crowd. I could sit in the background and take the focus off me. Writing is the perfect career, I reckon, for the extroverted introvert. You get to show off and still retain your privacy.
The point of no return came when I was seventeen. Virgin were no longer doing The New Adventures. My submission was returned unread with a note that said they could not pursue the series any longer due to licensing problems with the Dr Who brand. But they were about to start their own line of SF novels, so, ya know, feel free to submit for that. Took me about a year, I reckon to write the 80k novel, THE STARS OF TOMORRROW, first in a planned trilogy that really borrowed far too heavily from Babylon 5 (with some Star Trek style temporal anomalies thrown in for good measure). But that novel earned me my first positive rejection letter. My first rejection letter ever. It was a form with ticks and comments, but what it told me was this:
I had the voice of a published author.
I could create coherent characters.
My plotting was logical and consistent.
However,
I borrowed far too heavily from established themes and ideas (ie, Straczynski coulda probably sued me for plagiarism)
and
I relied too much on coincidence to move the story and characters forward.
As far as rejections letters go, it was beautiful. That they didn’t hate it was good enough for me. I figured, I’m young, I got time to get better. I also never told ‘em my age. When I first started submitting, I never did that, because I didn’t want anyone to go easy on me. The writing, I knew even then, had to speak for itself.
So, yeah, that letter was my tipping point. If it hadn’t been for that letter I might not have kept going. Had my first letter been like one I later received, my manuscript sent return postage covered in angry crayon scrawls with a wee note at the bottom of the title page saying, “As you can see, my kids didn’t like it either” or the one that said, “Your work reminds me a little of Ernie Wise and that little play what he wrote” I probably wouldn’t have kept fighting to improve my work and to grow as a writer.
That was the moment when I knew I wanted to be a writer, when I was seventeen. When I realised that it was possible to make what seemed like a daydream become something real if I just put in the hard work and paid attention to constructive criticism (and only later would I learn to ignore the mean spirited stuff). And if I could do that, then maybe I really could achieve the dream of indoor work with no heavy lifting.
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