After a three-year hiatus, I'm finally back on the submission train. Prose works, that is. I regularly submit to screenplay contests, and I'm still working on a sale or option.
So far this year, I've submitted a short story, a novella, and a novel. My goal is to submit at least one other novel, maybe two more. I haven't been idle, writing four novels and two novellas, with one novel half completed.
I can't explain why it takes me so long to submit something. Scared of rejection, most likely, although I deal with it. (When that Film Freeway notification doesn't begin with "Congratulations," I know my screenplay didn't get in.) Contests and publishing are both subjective. I'm grateful there are more opportunities for writers than when I was in college.
Hopefully, my books will find a publisher. As for finding an agent, at this point, I like being in control of the submission process. Perhaps in the future, I'll submit a novel to an agent, but probably not in the genre I'm currently working in. Depends on the certain factors. Right now, I want to write what I enjoy and not what's supposedly "marketable," since the market is in a constant state of flux. It's another reason why I like to write multi-genre, although suspense is always an underlying component of my stories, whether paranormal or contemporary.
Fingers are crossed.
Showing posts with label submitting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label submitting. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
The Ten Commandments of Writing #8: Thou Shalt Heed the Submission Guidelines
It's been a while since I posted anything in this series of posts. Part of the reason, if I'm honest, is a crisis of confidence. When you have no faith in your own writing, you feel you have no right to lecture anyone else.
However, that sort of thinking is unhelpful, and I'm going to come back to that a bit later in the series. For now, though, it's time to pick up where we left off in the Ten Commandments of Writing. So you've written your manuscript, you've polished it until it shines, and now you're ready to send it out into the world. So what's next? You have to submit it.
Things have moved on quite a bit from when I first started submitting to agents and editors, back in the 1990s. In those days the submission instructions were fairly standard - the first three chapters and a synopsis, with a stamped self-addressed envelope, which involved spending my lunch hour standing in line at the post office to get my envelope weighed, buying return postage to include on the return envelope before sealing up the package, only to have it land on my doorstep a couple of days later in an envelope with my own handwriting on it.
Nowadays most submissions are made by email, but the instructions can vary widely. Firstly, you have more options, because there are far more small presses out there who are willing to look at unsolicited manuscripts, so you are not restricted to submitting only to agents. But some publishing houses might not want attachments in emails for fear of viruses. Some might have old machines that can't deal with certain types of software so they can only accept submissions in a certain format. Some don't like fancy fonts. In the old days of postal submissions, everything was pretty much written in courier or Times Roman. I still write all my manuscripts in Times Roman. It has a bad press in the business world these days, but I have a fondness for serif fonts that are clear and straightforward and easy to read. None of this sans serif font business where a capital 'I' and a lower case 'l' are indistinguishable.
Anyway, here is Commandment #8, and it is important: read the submission requirements carefully, and follow them to the letter, and this is about a lot more than ensuring that the publishing house you are submitting to deals with the genre you write in. Are the instructions asking for the first three chapters and a synopsis, or the whole manuscript? Do they ask for a blurb and the first chapter that must be embedded in the email, and do not under any circumstances send attachments? Do they want the whole manuscript, in 10-point courier font, single spaced, using paragraph auto indents instead of tabs and no page numbers? Then that's exactly what you send.
Read the guidelines carefully, prepare your submission equally carefully, and double check everything before you hit 'send'. And then, if you're anything like me, you check your email box obsessively every half an hour until you get a response.
But at least your work will be Out There, and that's what counts. Good luck!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
The Shara Summers Series
When I started shopping DEAD COOL to publishers, I made mention of the fact that it was the second book in a series and that the first, though published, was due to have rights revert back to me fairly soon. This was entirely true, but I had no idea whether or not the information would help. I didn't think, at the time, that any publisher would be interested in taking on a book that was effectively a back list title. In fact I'd already started thinking about possibly self-publishing DEATH SCENE when the rights came back. What else was I going to do with it?
And then when MuseItUp Publishing took on DEAD COOL they also expressed interest in the first book in the series when the rights became available.
And so it is that DEATH SCENE, though not currently available, will be released by MuseItUp later this year. Before DEAD COOL, as it happens.
DEATH SCENE is to be released Spring/Summer (which I gather can mean any time between March and August), with DEAD COOL scheduled for release in Autumn (September-November). Once I have a better idea of dates, I will of course publicise this.
The irony in all this is that the when I was shopping DEAD COOL around to publishers, at the same time as my horror novel, the amateur sleuth novel was the one I was least confident about. And yet, in the end, not only did I get a request for a full manuscript from every single publisher I sent the first three chapters to, in the end it got picked up first. Thus proving that sometimes writers get far too close to their own work to be able to offer a balanced viewpoint.
So the Shara Summers books are now officially a series. And with books 1 and 2 having a home together, I'm seriously thinking about writing book 3.
Up to now Shara's been largely ignored. Let's hope that with her first two adventures being released into the wide world this year, she'll finally start to make an impact. I think there's life in the old girl yet.
And then when MuseItUp Publishing took on DEAD COOL they also expressed interest in the first book in the series when the rights became available.
And so it is that DEATH SCENE, though not currently available, will be released by MuseItUp later this year. Before DEAD COOL, as it happens.
DEATH SCENE is to be released Spring/Summer (which I gather can mean any time between March and August), with DEAD COOL scheduled for release in Autumn (September-November). Once I have a better idea of dates, I will of course publicise this.
The irony in all this is that the when I was shopping DEAD COOL around to publishers, at the same time as my horror novel, the amateur sleuth novel was the one I was least confident about. And yet, in the end, not only did I get a request for a full manuscript from every single publisher I sent the first three chapters to, in the end it got picked up first. Thus proving that sometimes writers get far too close to their own work to be able to offer a balanced viewpoint.
So the Shara Summers books are now officially a series. And with books 1 and 2 having a home together, I'm seriously thinking about writing book 3.
Up to now Shara's been largely ignored. Let's hope that with her first two adventures being released into the wide world this year, she'll finally start to make an impact. I think there's life in the old girl yet.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Riding the Rejection Train
I am currently in the position of having two completed manuscripts and no publisher. One is a horror novel, the other is the second book in the series about amateur sleuth Shara Summers.
I've started submitting these two and I get a strange feeling of deja vu. Between 2007 and 2009 I also had two novels to submit - one horror (SUFFER THE CHILDREN) and one crime (DEATH SCENE), the first Shara Summers book. Then Lyrical accepted SUFFER THE CHILDREN, followed by DEATH SCENE, and the rest is history.
But now I find myself riding the submission/rejection train again, for the first time in quite a while. Though actually I think 'rejection roundabout' is a better metaphor. You feel like you're going round and round in a circle.
I can categorically say it doesn't get easier. I've only just started this journey again, with each novel being sent out to only one publisher so far. Unfortunately it happened that the responses arrived at the same time, in spite one novel being sent out quite a while before the other. The rejection for the crime novel arrived on Monday; the rejection email for the horror novel on Tuesday. So it's not been a good week.
Before I was published I held this fantastical idea that being published would make it all better. That once I had one novel accepted, everything else I wrote would automatically get accepted, and I would never again worry that what I was writing wasn't good enough. But that's not the way it works. Just because someone accepts one novel doesn't necessarily mean they - or anyone else for that matter - will like everything else you write. And you don't stop with the writer insecurities. Instead of fearing I'll never be published, now I fear that the first two novels got published as a bit of a fluke, my creativity is spent and I'll never write anything of publishable quality again.
But the same rules apply to all writers, no matter how much or how little experience you have. When the rejections come, you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. So I've crossed the first names off the submission list for these two manuscripts, and getting ready to go down the list.
For the time being, though, I'm still smarting from the double whammy of being rejected twice in two days. I'll be over here in the corner for a while, quietly whimpering.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Not Enough Words?
I have finished my new horror novel! This is a cause for celebration, and time to start submitting it.
The novel is about a group of LRP-ers who unwittingly unleash an undead magic user onto the world whilst performing a ritual during a game, which proceeds to wreak death and destruction on those involved in the game. The finished draft has come out at 69,000 words. I'm aware that this is a very short novel. In fact, to some it's only half of a novel. The majority of people in the writing group are fantasy writers. Most of their first drafts start off with over 150,000 words.
I've never really 'got' how you can stuff so much into one novel to make it so long. I am the opposite. I end up with 50,000 word first drafts and then I have to pad them. Only that's what it looks like - padding. I used a fair amount of padding in the version of DEATH SCENE that got submitted to Lyrical Press. My editor promptly stripped out all the padding, saying - quite correctly - it was superfluous to the plot.
I remember that lesson when I write novels now. Is this scene moving the plot forward in some way? Is it revealing something about a character, or a plot point that becomes important later on? If the answer to all of these is 'no', the scene has no place in the book. So this is a very short novel. But it doesn't have much padding, and I think I'm going to keep it that way.
I am a voracious reader, as anyone who follows this blog will know. I read quickly, and I like strong plots, but I read so many books I don't retain plots of books I've read for very long. I like clear beginnings, middles, and ends. I don't like subtle hints, I don't like ambiguity (my attitude to this is if the author couldn't be arsed to work out what was really going on, why should I?), and I like satisfactory endings. If it's a horror novel, the horror should be resolved. I don't mind if all the main characters die - that's acceptable in horror. But if it's a crime novel the killer must be caught. If he or she gets away with it, that's an unsatisfactory ending.
I do most of my reading on the train, going in and out of London to the day job. I have about 40 minutes at each stretch. On my journey home I want to be able to pick the story up again from where I left off that morning. I don't want the plot to be so complex that I have to re-read the last 10 pages to remember what's going on. I don't want to be re-introduced to a character who had a brief appearance 100 pages ago and I'm supposed to remember that, because I won't. And I like chapters to be short. When I get to the end of a chapter at Clapham Junction I will be checking to see how long the next chapter is, and if I have time to read it in the few minutes I've got left until the train gets in to Victoria station. If it's only five pages, I will keep reading. If it's 20, or worse, I will put the book away at that point and put some music on instead - because I hate finishing a reading session mid-chapter.
I am aware that my writing style reflects my reading preferences. I write plot-driven stories, I focus on a few main characters and the peripheral ones are never really fleshed out, I don't complicate the story with lots of sub-plots, and I write very short chapters. The vast majority of them are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and I have been known to chapters less than 1,000 words long.
Consequently I tend to write very short novels. But you know what? Maybe that's just the way it is. I'm never going to win any literary prizes for fiction, and maybe I'll never write the kind of doorstopper that hits the best sellers list.
But that's OK. I write what I write. It's not going to be to everyone's taste, and I get that. But I know there's a few people out there that like what I write, and the way I write it.
And so this new novel is for you. It's short, but it's finished, and it's about to go out into the big wide world to find a publisher.
The novel is about a group of LRP-ers who unwittingly unleash an undead magic user onto the world whilst performing a ritual during a game, which proceeds to wreak death and destruction on those involved in the game. The finished draft has come out at 69,000 words. I'm aware that this is a very short novel. In fact, to some it's only half of a novel. The majority of people in the writing group are fantasy writers. Most of their first drafts start off with over 150,000 words.
I've never really 'got' how you can stuff so much into one novel to make it so long. I am the opposite. I end up with 50,000 word first drafts and then I have to pad them. Only that's what it looks like - padding. I used a fair amount of padding in the version of DEATH SCENE that got submitted to Lyrical Press. My editor promptly stripped out all the padding, saying - quite correctly - it was superfluous to the plot.
I remember that lesson when I write novels now. Is this scene moving the plot forward in some way? Is it revealing something about a character, or a plot point that becomes important later on? If the answer to all of these is 'no', the scene has no place in the book. So this is a very short novel. But it doesn't have much padding, and I think I'm going to keep it that way.
I am a voracious reader, as anyone who follows this blog will know. I read quickly, and I like strong plots, but I read so many books I don't retain plots of books I've read for very long. I like clear beginnings, middles, and ends. I don't like subtle hints, I don't like ambiguity (my attitude to this is if the author couldn't be arsed to work out what was really going on, why should I?), and I like satisfactory endings. If it's a horror novel, the horror should be resolved. I don't mind if all the main characters die - that's acceptable in horror. But if it's a crime novel the killer must be caught. If he or she gets away with it, that's an unsatisfactory ending.
I do most of my reading on the train, going in and out of London to the day job. I have about 40 minutes at each stretch. On my journey home I want to be able to pick the story up again from where I left off that morning. I don't want the plot to be so complex that I have to re-read the last 10 pages to remember what's going on. I don't want to be re-introduced to a character who had a brief appearance 100 pages ago and I'm supposed to remember that, because I won't. And I like chapters to be short. When I get to the end of a chapter at Clapham Junction I will be checking to see how long the next chapter is, and if I have time to read it in the few minutes I've got left until the train gets in to Victoria station. If it's only five pages, I will keep reading. If it's 20, or worse, I will put the book away at that point and put some music on instead - because I hate finishing a reading session mid-chapter.
I am aware that my writing style reflects my reading preferences. I write plot-driven stories, I focus on a few main characters and the peripheral ones are never really fleshed out, I don't complicate the story with lots of sub-plots, and I write very short chapters. The vast majority of them are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and I have been known to chapters less than 1,000 words long.
Consequently I tend to write very short novels. But you know what? Maybe that's just the way it is. I'm never going to win any literary prizes for fiction, and maybe I'll never write the kind of doorstopper that hits the best sellers list.
But that's OK. I write what I write. It's not going to be to everyone's taste, and I get that. But I know there's a few people out there that like what I write, and the way I write it.
And so this new novel is for you. It's short, but it's finished, and it's about to go out into the big wide world to find a publisher.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Riding the Submission Merry-Go-Round
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I submitted three chapters of The Ripper's Daughter yesterday, my vampire paranormal suspense novella I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2011.
To say I'm trying to focus on other projects right now would be a bald-faced lie. Short of leaving the house without my laptop or cellphone, and only an old-fashioned paper notebook would be the only way I'd stop obsessing.
Dumb, right? I know how the submission process works. I have patience, and the fact I got this far on a pitch and query letter says my skills in that area are improving. Is it possible the log line and I will become friends? Yeah, right.
I think it's apprehension, fear of failure. I'd rather have the bad news early than wait. Like the saying goes, "Let's just rip off that band-aid." I need to get to work on my other stories, but I've decided to take today and read and watch some movies. There's nothing I can do about the submission, and if it gets rejected, I've a couple other publishers I plan to submit to.
Meantime, I'm sure I'll be jumping aboard that merry-go-round for another ride in the near future.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Waiting...
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| Waiting For Answer by Can Atacan |
After two years, I finally submitted Exterminating Angel to a publisher. It's been about a week and a half since I hit SEND, and I've no idea what to expect. While I hope they'll accept it, the pragmatic part of me has also listed other publishers in case the first one doesn't work out.
So far I'm keeping with my promise to submit at least one story a month. Yesterday, I submitted four stories on spec for a possible collection. I've no idea of the response time, but am glad the publisher is willing to look at them.
And then there's the contest I entered back in December. The results won't be known until around August. (I submitted early, which is recommended with contests.) At this point, I'm debating entering another one, but this time I won't make the "Early Bird" deadline. Have to look at the screenplay and see if it's ready. If I do enter the contest, that will be March's entry, and I'll be on track.
On an unrelated note, "Family Tradition" placed #5 on the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll for Short Horror Story. I hope that helps generate some interest in my dark fiction suspense story.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
What Did You Just Call Me?
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| Courtesy: MorgueFile.com |
Titles not only need to grab reader attention, they need to give a clue as to the tone and genre of the book. For example, I'm working on a collection of short dark fiction that I plan to call Malice and Mayhem: Tales of the Macabre. This should give a pretty good indication of the subject matter.
Which brings me to my latest WIP, formerly known as The Zaphkiel Project. For two years, I've debated what to call this angel UF. Zaphkiel and A Discordant Melody were two titles I played with, but neither were very exciting. And A Discordant Melody sounded more like sci-fi. (Although who's to say I won't write such a story?) For those curious, it relates to the disruption of the planetary harmonics in the story, something I researched for this WIP.
I'm getting ready to submit The Zaphkiel Project, so I needed a title. I brainstormed, writing down character names and anything related to the book: Venus Transit, angels, demons, pentacles, ghouls, Tarot...
Nothing.
And then I wrote the title of a song by Blutengel: "Oxidising Angel".
That brought to mind the title "Exterminating Angel". Surely there had to be several books with that title. But this didn't seem to be the case. Instead, "Exterminating Angel" is better known as a movie by Luis Bunuel.
I doubt anyone will confuse my angel paranormal/UF with Bunuel's satire.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Bits and Pieces: A Summary of My Week
It's my birthday today and I'd hoped to hear some news on a submission, but no luck. (The site says X weeks and it's been the requisite number of weeks, hence my reason for being twitchy.)
However, another short story publication should be out soon. Hopefully, I'll be able to post something next week.
Ah, the waiting game. Authors know it well. So do actors, waiting to hear back on auditions. Best remedy is to keep busy. That's not too difficult. But like I said, it gets harder when the time has past and nothing is said. I hate to be left wondering.
On a totally separate note, I visited a bookstore I hadn't seen in almost 20 years: Joseph-Beth in Lexington, Kentucky. I attended my first meeting of the Kentucky Indie Writers and stopped at J-B on the way home. Besides the bookstore, I also want to visit the Kentucky Horse Park again. I've always loved horses and Kentucky has a connection with horses that runs deep. So it wouldn't surprise me if I found myself writing a story about them.
Tomorrow it's back to work. Have to get ready for Fandom Fest next month. But tonight, I'm going to relax and celebrate the final hours of my birthday watching classic film noir.
Happy Writing!
However, another short story publication should be out soon. Hopefully, I'll be able to post something next week.
Ah, the waiting game. Authors know it well. So do actors, waiting to hear back on auditions. Best remedy is to keep busy. That's not too difficult. But like I said, it gets harder when the time has past and nothing is said. I hate to be left wondering.
Tomorrow it's back to work. Have to get ready for Fandom Fest next month. But tonight, I'm going to relax and celebrate the final hours of my birthday watching classic film noir.
Happy Writing!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Another Day, Another Short Story
Earlier this week, I submitted my second macabre short story to a publisher. I'm currently working on an idea for another short story involving necromancy. Then there's my mystery short, "Death by Fresh Air" but that's on the proverbial back burner for now.
Don't let anyone fool you. Writing short stories isn't easy. When writing a novel, you need to make every word count. This is even more crucial with short stories. There's also the fear of falling into info dump territory. Some stories are not made to be short. (I learned that lesson.)
Besides the aforementioned stories, I also have a blog, The Sepulchral Library, with a few flash fiction dark genre pieces. Feel free to check it out, if you like.
Don't let anyone fool you. Writing short stories isn't easy. When writing a novel, you need to make every word count. This is even more crucial with short stories. There's also the fear of falling into info dump territory. Some stories are not made to be short. (I learned that lesson.)
Besides the aforementioned stories, I also have a blog, The Sepulchral Library, with a few flash fiction dark genre pieces. Feel free to check it out, if you like.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Fear
When I was a little girl, there was a game I used to like to play with my dad. We called it the 'Hand Stand Game'. He would lie on his back on the floor, arms above his head, palms up to the ceiling. I would plant a foot in each one of his hands. Holding onto my feet he would slowly raise his hands, then sit up, then get up into a standing position, all the while with me balancing on his hands. Besides what it says about my dad's upper body strength (I know I can't stand from a lying position without using my hands), I think we gave my mother heart failure whenever we played this game. As a four-year-old, I ended up pretty high off the ground. And yet I did this with confidence, and without fear. Until I got to about nine, and then suddenly I lost my nerve and I couldn't do it anymore. I had acquired fear.
Fear is a learned emotion. We don't possess it as children. Two things teach it to us. Firstly, we learn fear through consequence. If you get stung as a small child by a wasp, you learn to be afraid of wasps. If you touch a flame and burn your finger, you learn that fire is to be feared. The other way we learn fear is because the adults around us teach it to us. "Don't play too close to the water; you'll fall in and drown," they say. "Don't climb to the top of the climbing frame. You might fall off and hurt yourself." The concept of falling hadn't occurred to us before then. But once someone plants the idea in our head, it's there forever.
It is the same with writers. Why do so many of us get discouraged? We fear failure, perhaps. As a child, I happily wrote story after story. I wasn't really thinking about whether or not they were any good. I wrote them because I wanted to, and I didn't really mind who read them. But then I hit puberty and my self-confidence took a pummelling. What if the stories I wrote really weren't any good? Like George McFly in "Back To The Future", I decided it was better not to let anyone read them, than have to deal with rejection.
I had to overcome this, of course, because I'd decided I wanted to be a published writer. I had to face my fear of rejection and start sending stuff out. I learned that rejection hurts, but it doesn't kill you. I also sought to learn how I could improve my writing, and thus increase its chances of acceptance.
I think it's this acquired fear that holds many of us back. We fear what we've written isn't any good. If you've got one book published, you then fear that you'll never write another one of publishable quality. You fear your book won't sell. You fear you'll never finish the one you're working on. There are so many things that we fear. But we have to push on despite that fear.
So we are afraid of falling. That shouldn't hold us back. Yes, we might fall. But if we do, we can get up and try again. Fear of falling shouldn't stop us from the climb. After all, we might not fall at all, and in addition discover that the view at the top is spectacular.
Fear is a learned emotion. We don't possess it as children. Two things teach it to us. Firstly, we learn fear through consequence. If you get stung as a small child by a wasp, you learn to be afraid of wasps. If you touch a flame and burn your finger, you learn that fire is to be feared. The other way we learn fear is because the adults around us teach it to us. "Don't play too close to the water; you'll fall in and drown," they say. "Don't climb to the top of the climbing frame. You might fall off and hurt yourself." The concept of falling hadn't occurred to us before then. But once someone plants the idea in our head, it's there forever.
It is the same with writers. Why do so many of us get discouraged? We fear failure, perhaps. As a child, I happily wrote story after story. I wasn't really thinking about whether or not they were any good. I wrote them because I wanted to, and I didn't really mind who read them. But then I hit puberty and my self-confidence took a pummelling. What if the stories I wrote really weren't any good? Like George McFly in "Back To The Future", I decided it was better not to let anyone read them, than have to deal with rejection.
I had to overcome this, of course, because I'd decided I wanted to be a published writer. I had to face my fear of rejection and start sending stuff out. I learned that rejection hurts, but it doesn't kill you. I also sought to learn how I could improve my writing, and thus increase its chances of acceptance.
I think it's this acquired fear that holds many of us back. We fear what we've written isn't any good. If you've got one book published, you then fear that you'll never write another one of publishable quality. You fear your book won't sell. You fear you'll never finish the one you're working on. There are so many things that we fear. But we have to push on despite that fear.
So we are afraid of falling. That shouldn't hold us back. Yes, we might fall. But if we do, we can get up and try again. Fear of falling shouldn't stop us from the climb. After all, we might not fall at all, and in addition discover that the view at the top is spectacular.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Writing Lesson #12: The Publishing Contract
At the point at which the publishing contract for SUFFER THE CHILDREN arrived from Lyrical Press last year, I had two finished novels working the submission/rejection circuit: my horror novel SUFFER THE CHILDREN, finished in 2004, and my amateur sleuth novel DEATH SCENE, finished in 2007.
SUFFER THE CHILDREN took ten years to write. I was somewhat dismayed to discover, when I did finally finish it and send it out on the submission circuit, that in those ten years the popularity of horror fiction in the UK had taken something of a nose dive. When I consulted my “Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook” for 2003 (knowing the novel was nearly ready to go I decided an up to date version would be in order), I discovered virtually no agents that were listing horror as a genre they dealt with. I decided to start describing my horror novel as ‘dark fantasy’, and began to send it to anyone who said they looked at science fiction and fantasy.
America still seemed to have a horror market, however, so I also sent it to American agents. I kept my eyes on the independent press market, as every so often a new small publisher would pop up, willing to consider ‘dark fantasy’.
But it kept racking up rejections. At one point I almost got a bite, when I sent it to a new editor, formerly an agent, who was starting up her own publishing company. She was very enthusiastic, and wanted SUFFER THE CHILDREN to be one of her first books, but sadly before her publishing company got off the ground, she became ill and the project never happened.
Eventually, I ran out of people to send SUFFER THE CHILDREN to and I got discouraged and put it back in the drawer. I decided to focus on the amateur sleuth novel instead. I reasoned that with the number of crime novels on the market, there had to be plenty of places to send that.
It turned out I wasn’t quite right on that point. The big market in crime novels - at least in the UK - is for police procedurals and thrillers, featuring gritty alcoholic loner detectives. What I had was a ‘cosy’ crime novel featuring an amateur sleuth.
I started sending it off to agents who said they dealt with crime and mystery novels. The rejections started rolling in. Some agents said there was no market for amateur sleuths, and although they liked the novel, they felt they wouldn’t be able to sell it. At least one agent said it wasn’t actually a ‘cosy’, as cosies are historical, preferably set in the ‘golden age’ of mystery novels (ie 1930s/40s). My sleuth is contemporary.
And then, at some point, horror seemed to take off again, but wearing a new face. In the guise of urban fantasy, featuring kick-ass female protagonists and sexy vampires, suddenly undead beasties were trendy again, and all over the place new publishers were popping up wanting to look at horror novels.
So I hauled out SUFFER THE CHILDREN, dusted it off, and prepared to send it out once more. I can’t remember how I first came across Lyrical Press – I think perhaps it was mentioned on one of the online writing forums I follow. But I took a look at their website, as I always do before I submit something, and was reassured to see that they had a number of horror novels on their list already. And their submission criteria was to send the entire manuscript as an email attachment. So, no queuing up at the Post Office, and no printing out of pages required. Another bonus.
I sent off the email with the required atachment and cover letter, made a note on my submission database, and continued researching other places to send SUFFER THE CHILDREN, for when it got rejected again. I was, at this point, keeping one list for places to send the crime novel and another for places to send the horror novel and my aim was to have at least one of them, preferably both, out on sub at all times.
A couple of weeks later when an email from Lyrical dropped into my inbox, I opened it fully expecting it to be another rejection.
I was at work at the time. I had to read the email three times before I digested what it said. It was not, in fact, a rejection, but an acceptance. With contract attached. There were a couple of conditions attached to the signing of the contract, the most significant of which was the fact that Lyrical wanted me to raise the age of the main character to 18 and not 14, as they felt it was a Young Adult novel as it stood, and they don’t publish YA. But the contract was real. I printed it off and stared at it for quite a long time, trying to digest the concept of what it meant. I don’t think I got much more work done that day.
I had been working 30 years towards getting a publishing contract for a novel. Sometimes the dream had seemed so unobtainable, I had begun to believe it was never going to happen.
But it did. There it was. And I knew that in that moment, life had changed. Not in any outwardly noticeable way – I wasn’t being offered a huge advance, and I wasn’t about to become rich and famous overnight. But in a hundred tiny ways, initially imperceptible ways, life did change.
And that is the subject of the next post in my Writing Lessons series.
SUFFER THE CHILDREN took ten years to write. I was somewhat dismayed to discover, when I did finally finish it and send it out on the submission circuit, that in those ten years the popularity of horror fiction in the UK had taken something of a nose dive. When I consulted my “Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook” for 2003 (knowing the novel was nearly ready to go I decided an up to date version would be in order), I discovered virtually no agents that were listing horror as a genre they dealt with. I decided to start describing my horror novel as ‘dark fantasy’, and began to send it to anyone who said they looked at science fiction and fantasy.
America still seemed to have a horror market, however, so I also sent it to American agents. I kept my eyes on the independent press market, as every so often a new small publisher would pop up, willing to consider ‘dark fantasy’.
But it kept racking up rejections. At one point I almost got a bite, when I sent it to a new editor, formerly an agent, who was starting up her own publishing company. She was very enthusiastic, and wanted SUFFER THE CHILDREN to be one of her first books, but sadly before her publishing company got off the ground, she became ill and the project never happened.
Eventually, I ran out of people to send SUFFER THE CHILDREN to and I got discouraged and put it back in the drawer. I decided to focus on the amateur sleuth novel instead. I reasoned that with the number of crime novels on the market, there had to be plenty of places to send that.
It turned out I wasn’t quite right on that point. The big market in crime novels - at least in the UK - is for police procedurals and thrillers, featuring gritty alcoholic loner detectives. What I had was a ‘cosy’ crime novel featuring an amateur sleuth.
I started sending it off to agents who said they dealt with crime and mystery novels. The rejections started rolling in. Some agents said there was no market for amateur sleuths, and although they liked the novel, they felt they wouldn’t be able to sell it. At least one agent said it wasn’t actually a ‘cosy’, as cosies are historical, preferably set in the ‘golden age’ of mystery novels (ie 1930s/40s). My sleuth is contemporary.
And then, at some point, horror seemed to take off again, but wearing a new face. In the guise of urban fantasy, featuring kick-ass female protagonists and sexy vampires, suddenly undead beasties were trendy again, and all over the place new publishers were popping up wanting to look at horror novels.
So I hauled out SUFFER THE CHILDREN, dusted it off, and prepared to send it out once more. I can’t remember how I first came across Lyrical Press – I think perhaps it was mentioned on one of the online writing forums I follow. But I took a look at their website, as I always do before I submit something, and was reassured to see that they had a number of horror novels on their list already. And their submission criteria was to send the entire manuscript as an email attachment. So, no queuing up at the Post Office, and no printing out of pages required. Another bonus.
I sent off the email with the required atachment and cover letter, made a note on my submission database, and continued researching other places to send SUFFER THE CHILDREN, for when it got rejected again. I was, at this point, keeping one list for places to send the crime novel and another for places to send the horror novel and my aim was to have at least one of them, preferably both, out on sub at all times.
A couple of weeks later when an email from Lyrical dropped into my inbox, I opened it fully expecting it to be another rejection.
I was at work at the time. I had to read the email three times before I digested what it said. It was not, in fact, a rejection, but an acceptance. With contract attached. There were a couple of conditions attached to the signing of the contract, the most significant of which was the fact that Lyrical wanted me to raise the age of the main character to 18 and not 14, as they felt it was a Young Adult novel as it stood, and they don’t publish YA. But the contract was real. I printed it off and stared at it for quite a long time, trying to digest the concept of what it meant. I don’t think I got much more work done that day.
I had been working 30 years towards getting a publishing contract for a novel. Sometimes the dream had seemed so unobtainable, I had begun to believe it was never going to happen.
But it did. There it was. And I knew that in that moment, life had changed. Not in any outwardly noticeable way – I wasn’t being offered a huge advance, and I wasn’t about to become rich and famous overnight. But in a hundred tiny ways, initially imperceptible ways, life did change.
And that is the subject of the next post in my Writing Lessons series.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Writing Lesson #11: The Evolution of Rejection
I joined the road paved with rejection slips in 1987, when I started sending out my early horror novel TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD. So by the time I received the publishing contract for SUFFER THE CHILDREN, I had been travelling that rejection road for over twenty years. And I’ve noticed some changes in that time.
I learned fairly early on that there was no point in sending your manuscript direct to publishers. You had to have an agent. I also learned that between UK and US agents, there was a difference in submission requirements. UK agents want the first three chapters and a synopsis. If they like what they see they will ask to see the full manuscript; if they don’t, they return the pages to you in the required SAE. There is one extra step with US agents, as they want a query letter first, then a partial if they like the query, then eventually the full manuscript (if you’re lucky).
In the early days, everyone wanted hard copy. I have spent many a lunch hour over the last twenty years queuing up in the Post Office, with my envelope containing my first three chapters or my short story, unsealed so when I got to the counter I could get it weighed to find out what the postage was going to be, get the equivalent amount for return postage, stick the return postage on the SAE before sealing the envelope, sticking the other stamps on the outside envelope and dropping the whole thing in the post box.
Having the pages returned to you, though, is often just a formality. When your pages come back to you in the SAE, they are generally in less than pristine condition and not really fit to be sent out to anyone else. After all, you don’t want to make a bad impression with agents and editors by submitting dog-eared and coffee-stained pages.
Submitting to international agents was even more of a challenge. Once upon a time you could send an international reply coupon, but over the years they became unpopular. It became easier to buy stamps whenever I went to the US, to use on SAEs when I submitted to American agents. But because I only visit the US once every couple of years I tended to stockpile the stamps, which would generally mean US postage would increase before I’d used all the stamps up, resulting in the necessity of trying to get hold of a load of 5-cent ones to make sure my SAE had the correct postage on.
But then, a few years ago, things started to change. We began to see an increase in small, independent publishers, who were happy to look at unsolicited manuscripts from new writers. Often they wanted to look at the whole thing, not just three chapters. Sometimes they were even happy to have the file sent as an email attachment.
The new writer is no longer limited to sending their manuscript to agents. The number of independent publishers continues to grow, and most of them are still happy to look at unagented writers. And nowadays it’s not just the new publishing companies that will accept email submissions. Many agents will accept emails also (but not all – there is still a need to check the individual requirements carefully before submitting).
Email submissions are far better for the writer. No more queuing up in the post office; no more small fortunes being spent on stamps, printer ink, paper and envelopes.
There’s an old saying about most writers having enough rejection slips to wallpaper their office with. I still have that old file, labelled ‘rejections’, but I haven’t added anything to it for a while. But not because I haven’t been getting rejections. My most recent rejections are all saved on the PC, in a sub-folder of my email inbox called ‘rejections’.
And this is another advantage of how technology has made submissions better. Electronic files don’t bulk out the folder the way paper does. If you can’t see the rejection folder getting visibly fatter, you get far less depressed.
I learned fairly early on that there was no point in sending your manuscript direct to publishers. You had to have an agent. I also learned that between UK and US agents, there was a difference in submission requirements. UK agents want the first three chapters and a synopsis. If they like what they see they will ask to see the full manuscript; if they don’t, they return the pages to you in the required SAE. There is one extra step with US agents, as they want a query letter first, then a partial if they like the query, then eventually the full manuscript (if you’re lucky).
In the early days, everyone wanted hard copy. I have spent many a lunch hour over the last twenty years queuing up in the Post Office, with my envelope containing my first three chapters or my short story, unsealed so when I got to the counter I could get it weighed to find out what the postage was going to be, get the equivalent amount for return postage, stick the return postage on the SAE before sealing the envelope, sticking the other stamps on the outside envelope and dropping the whole thing in the post box.
Having the pages returned to you, though, is often just a formality. When your pages come back to you in the SAE, they are generally in less than pristine condition and not really fit to be sent out to anyone else. After all, you don’t want to make a bad impression with agents and editors by submitting dog-eared and coffee-stained pages.
Submitting to international agents was even more of a challenge. Once upon a time you could send an international reply coupon, but over the years they became unpopular. It became easier to buy stamps whenever I went to the US, to use on SAEs when I submitted to American agents. But because I only visit the US once every couple of years I tended to stockpile the stamps, which would generally mean US postage would increase before I’d used all the stamps up, resulting in the necessity of trying to get hold of a load of 5-cent ones to make sure my SAE had the correct postage on.
But then, a few years ago, things started to change. We began to see an increase in small, independent publishers, who were happy to look at unsolicited manuscripts from new writers. Often they wanted to look at the whole thing, not just three chapters. Sometimes they were even happy to have the file sent as an email attachment.
The new writer is no longer limited to sending their manuscript to agents. The number of independent publishers continues to grow, and most of them are still happy to look at unagented writers. And nowadays it’s not just the new publishing companies that will accept email submissions. Many agents will accept emails also (but not all – there is still a need to check the individual requirements carefully before submitting).
Email submissions are far better for the writer. No more queuing up in the post office; no more small fortunes being spent on stamps, printer ink, paper and envelopes.
There’s an old saying about most writers having enough rejection slips to wallpaper their office with. I still have that old file, labelled ‘rejections’, but I haven’t added anything to it for a while. But not because I haven’t been getting rejections. My most recent rejections are all saved on the PC, in a sub-folder of my email inbox called ‘rejections’.
And this is another advantage of how technology has made submissions better. Electronic files don’t bulk out the folder the way paper does. If you can’t see the rejection folder getting visibly fatter, you get far less depressed.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Doors Are Open
For Angry Robot submissions that is.
I'm halfway through the first round of revisions for Forgotten Angel, the manuscript I want to submit this month. At least that's the working title. Otherwise, I call it the Zaphkiel Project. Usually I don't have a problem with titles but this time I'm, as Grimm would say, "Flummoxed."
Forgotten Angel is my longest work so far. I used to joke I would never write a story over 50k. The original draft of this one came to 102k and has since been whittled down to 94k or thereabouts. Yeah, when I say I slice and dice my work, I wasn't kidding.
While it would be nice if AR sent me a contract (fingers crossed), I'll also compile a list of other publishers to submit to. Meantime, it's back to these edits.
That's if I don't get sidetracked by this shiny new story idea that keeps demanding my attention...
I'm halfway through the first round of revisions for Forgotten Angel, the manuscript I want to submit this month. At least that's the working title. Otherwise, I call it the Zaphkiel Project. Usually I don't have a problem with titles but this time I'm, as Grimm would say, "Flummoxed."
Forgotten Angel is my longest work so far. I used to joke I would never write a story over 50k. The original draft of this one came to 102k and has since been whittled down to 94k or thereabouts. Yeah, when I say I slice and dice my work, I wasn't kidding.
While it would be nice if AR sent me a contract (fingers crossed), I'll also compile a list of other publishers to submit to. Meantime, it's back to these edits.
That's if I don't get sidetracked by this shiny new story idea that keeps demanding my attention...
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Writing Lesson #7: The Importance of Writing Groups
Around the time I started submitting things, it occurred to me there had to be a stage or two between my writing the story and an editor reading it. After all, I had no concept as to whether or not what I was writing was any good – I only had the enthusiastic praise of parents and teachers, who were hardly objective.
I have previously mentioned buying FEAR magazine because it looked like a possible market. In the first issue I bought, I noticed an ad in the classifieds section, from someone in Kent looking to form a writing group for horror writers. This was in the days before email (yes, kids, such a time did exist). There was a postal address. The address was not too far away from where I was living, so I sent a letter off to said address, introducing myself and my writing and explaining I was interested in joining a writing group.
A few weeks later, I got a response, naming a date and location for the proposed first meeting. This was, as I recall, some time in 1989. I was 19, and I hadn’t been back in England very long. My boyfriend of the time was really not happy about my traipsing across South London alone to meet a bunch of people who were complete strangers, and insisted on driving me there, even though he had no interest whatsoever in horror and thought it a strange fad I’d eventually lose interest in (that’s a story for another time, but suffice to say he’s very, very, ex).
So, the group met. There were about half a dozen of us, of varying ages. I had never before been in the company of so many horror fans – and most of them were fond of far, far sicker horror than I. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe I wasn’t so weird after all.
In these days before email, the format for the workshops was that people would hand out hard copies of their work, to be workshopped at the next meeting. After a couple of meetings, I felt brave enough to hand out my first offering – “The Top Floor”. I’d already submitted the story to FEAR magazine at the point it was workshopped, and, indeed, the acceptance letter arrived before the workshop date did. So I turned up at that meeting, and listened to everyone going around the circle, pretty much trashing the story, trying to mask my smugness. I have to say I probably failed. At the end, when the last person had had their say, finishing with something along the lines of, “I really can’t imagine anyone wanting to publish this,” I was able to say, “funny you should say that, because it’s just been accepted by FEAR”. There followed a moment of silence, and then some reluctant, envy-laden congratulations. Because everybody wanted to be in FEAR magazine in those days, and nobody in that particular group was.
Eventually this writing group evolved into the T Party, which is another story in itself (and if you really want to read it, there’s an abbreviated version on my website here). Things have changed over the years, but it started as a group to critique sf, fantasy and horror, and that mission statement still holds.
We are a lot bigger these days, and stories go out by email, instead of hardcopy. Over all this time, what has not changed is the group’s ability to dish out honest feedback. It can be pretty harsh, there’s no doubt about that. But what I’ve learned over the years has been invaluable in improving my writing. Sometimes I’ve come away from meetings feeling completely flayed, when something I’ve been working on for ages has been figuratively ripped to shreds. At those times I feel a little wounded, and often very depressed. But I’m normally not able to disagree with those criticisms. It’s usually a case of my thinking, “This is hard to hear, and I don’t want to admit it, but this person is right and there is a problem there.”
Being with the writing group has also helped me immensely in developing the thick skin that one needs to keep on submitting one’s work. I face rejection after rejection, and stuff just keeps going out again. Nothing that any editor or agent can say to me has ever matched the brutal honesty of the T Party.
And I’m actually proud of this. In spite of the fact that sometimes newcomers find this brutal honesty hard to deal with, I’m glad it exists. It’s made us all much better writers.
I have previously mentioned buying FEAR magazine because it looked like a possible market. In the first issue I bought, I noticed an ad in the classifieds section, from someone in Kent looking to form a writing group for horror writers. This was in the days before email (yes, kids, such a time did exist). There was a postal address. The address was not too far away from where I was living, so I sent a letter off to said address, introducing myself and my writing and explaining I was interested in joining a writing group.
A few weeks later, I got a response, naming a date and location for the proposed first meeting. This was, as I recall, some time in 1989. I was 19, and I hadn’t been back in England very long. My boyfriend of the time was really not happy about my traipsing across South London alone to meet a bunch of people who were complete strangers, and insisted on driving me there, even though he had no interest whatsoever in horror and thought it a strange fad I’d eventually lose interest in (that’s a story for another time, but suffice to say he’s very, very, ex).
So, the group met. There were about half a dozen of us, of varying ages. I had never before been in the company of so many horror fans – and most of them were fond of far, far sicker horror than I. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe I wasn’t so weird after all.
In these days before email, the format for the workshops was that people would hand out hard copies of their work, to be workshopped at the next meeting. After a couple of meetings, I felt brave enough to hand out my first offering – “The Top Floor”. I’d already submitted the story to FEAR magazine at the point it was workshopped, and, indeed, the acceptance letter arrived before the workshop date did. So I turned up at that meeting, and listened to everyone going around the circle, pretty much trashing the story, trying to mask my smugness. I have to say I probably failed. At the end, when the last person had had their say, finishing with something along the lines of, “I really can’t imagine anyone wanting to publish this,” I was able to say, “funny you should say that, because it’s just been accepted by FEAR”. There followed a moment of silence, and then some reluctant, envy-laden congratulations. Because everybody wanted to be in FEAR magazine in those days, and nobody in that particular group was.
Eventually this writing group evolved into the T Party, which is another story in itself (and if you really want to read it, there’s an abbreviated version on my website here). Things have changed over the years, but it started as a group to critique sf, fantasy and horror, and that mission statement still holds.
We are a lot bigger these days, and stories go out by email, instead of hardcopy. Over all this time, what has not changed is the group’s ability to dish out honest feedback. It can be pretty harsh, there’s no doubt about that. But what I’ve learned over the years has been invaluable in improving my writing. Sometimes I’ve come away from meetings feeling completely flayed, when something I’ve been working on for ages has been figuratively ripped to shreds. At those times I feel a little wounded, and often very depressed. But I’m normally not able to disagree with those criticisms. It’s usually a case of my thinking, “This is hard to hear, and I don’t want to admit it, but this person is right and there is a problem there.”
Being with the writing group has also helped me immensely in developing the thick skin that one needs to keep on submitting one’s work. I face rejection after rejection, and stuff just keeps going out again. Nothing that any editor or agent can say to me has ever matched the brutal honesty of the T Party.
And I’m actually proud of this. In spite of the fact that sometimes newcomers find this brutal honesty hard to deal with, I’m glad it exists. It’s made us all much better writers.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Writing Lesson #4: Going To Market
I discovered horror in grade 8, when I was 14. I picked up DIFF’RENT SEASONS in the school library. I enjoyed that so much I went looking for more. The next King book I read was CARRIE. That was possibly a turning point. I identified with Carrie, the high school loser with no friends. In fact I rather wished I possessed her ability to instigate the violent and painful death of everyone who gave her a hard time. In any case, I was hooked on King.
I was also in Mrs Riepert’s English class that year, and we were given an assignment to write a horror story. We started with brainstorming titles. As everyone called out titles, mine came suddenly, unprompted, into my mind: TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD. It’s probably the only time in my writing career I have come up with the title before the story – usually the title comes to me at the end. TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD was about ten teenagers who go on a camping trip, and unearth an evil entity that possesses them and makes them murder each other.
I had to read the story out loud in front of the class and it seemed to go down well with my classmates, in particular my science lab partner, Rob Vukovic, who was a fan of the genre. He told me repeatedly that year I ought to write more horror. He’s probably not given me a thought in 25 years or more, but I guess I was listening, because by the time I got to high school I was a horror convert.
I decided to turn TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD into a novel. I finished it when I was 17. I didn’t have a computer in those days (we are talking circa 1987 here). The first draft of TITF was written in pencil, as was my process by then, and then I redrafted it in pen. But my uncle had one of those newfangled devices called a word processor, and he volunteered to type it out for me. I handed over the handwritten pages, and he duly returned the manuscript to me in the form of three printouts and a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk (remember those?) with the files on it.
TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD became the first novel I sent out into the big wide world. I really had no idea where to start. I went to the library and picked up a few books in the teenage horror range – which at that point was still a strange new genre – and looked up the publisher’s address on the title page. That’s where I sent my manuscript- in its entirety. I didn’t know about the etiquette of query letters, or sending only the first three chapters. I’m not even sure if I remembered return postage, although older and wiser people may have pointed out to me the wisdom of doing this, if I wanted the precious package returned.
Those initial queries came back fairly swiftly, with kind and encouraging rejection letters that basically said the publisher was always pleased to hear from young people who liked to write (I had mentioned my age in the cover letter; the publishers had all decided to be gentle), and my writing showed promise, but I needed a bit more practice before it would be ready for publication.
After racking up a few rejection letters, I started to wonder if maybe I was aiming too high. It was getting expensive to keep sending the novel out, and not many publishers were dealing with teenage horror in those days.
Then I thought, perhaps I should lower the bar. So I put TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD in a drawer, and looked towards my short stories instead. Perhaps it would be easier to start small, and get some of those published first, my 17-year-old self reasoned.
I still had a lot of lessons to learn about writing, and submitting, at that point. But one of the things I learned fairly on was that rejection was all part of the process.
I was also in Mrs Riepert’s English class that year, and we were given an assignment to write a horror story. We started with brainstorming titles. As everyone called out titles, mine came suddenly, unprompted, into my mind: TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD. It’s probably the only time in my writing career I have come up with the title before the story – usually the title comes to me at the end. TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD was about ten teenagers who go on a camping trip, and unearth an evil entity that possesses them and makes them murder each other.
I had to read the story out loud in front of the class and it seemed to go down well with my classmates, in particular my science lab partner, Rob Vukovic, who was a fan of the genre. He told me repeatedly that year I ought to write more horror. He’s probably not given me a thought in 25 years or more, but I guess I was listening, because by the time I got to high school I was a horror convert.
I decided to turn TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD into a novel. I finished it when I was 17. I didn’t have a computer in those days (we are talking circa 1987 here). The first draft of TITF was written in pencil, as was my process by then, and then I redrafted it in pen. But my uncle had one of those newfangled devices called a word processor, and he volunteered to type it out for me. I handed over the handwritten pages, and he duly returned the manuscript to me in the form of three printouts and a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk (remember those?) with the files on it.
TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD became the first novel I sent out into the big wide world. I really had no idea where to start. I went to the library and picked up a few books in the teenage horror range – which at that point was still a strange new genre – and looked up the publisher’s address on the title page. That’s where I sent my manuscript- in its entirety. I didn’t know about the etiquette of query letters, or sending only the first three chapters. I’m not even sure if I remembered return postage, although older and wiser people may have pointed out to me the wisdom of doing this, if I wanted the precious package returned.
Those initial queries came back fairly swiftly, with kind and encouraging rejection letters that basically said the publisher was always pleased to hear from young people who liked to write (I had mentioned my age in the cover letter; the publishers had all decided to be gentle), and my writing showed promise, but I needed a bit more practice before it would be ready for publication.
After racking up a few rejection letters, I started to wonder if maybe I was aiming too high. It was getting expensive to keep sending the novel out, and not many publishers were dealing with teenage horror in those days.
Then I thought, perhaps I should lower the bar. So I put TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD in a drawer, and looked towards my short stories instead. Perhaps it would be easier to start small, and get some of those published first, my 17-year-old self reasoned.
I still had a lot of lessons to learn about writing, and submitting, at that point. But one of the things I learned fairly on was that rejection was all part of the process.
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