Week of January 1-7

[mrissa]

Three rejections, two of which were at least sensible, possibly even insightful, and the third of which made me deeply glad not to actually be working with that person on any piece of fiction. Do you ever get those, o you other writer people on the friendslist? The totally psycho rejection? The one that says something like, "I just didn't like the aliens" in a story that had no aliens anywhere in it? (That wasn't this week. Still.) It's the very best kind of rejection there is, the whew-dodged-that-bullet rejection.

Also I got sparklies from elisem and arranged for future sparklies. Also there was company chicken, which is always good (lemon and dill and almonds!). Also there was a large and unpleasant dysosmic event, but we don't have to talk about that.

Comments

[seajules]

I once got a rejection that boiled down to, "My publication is speshul, and your story is not speshul, you peon. If it were speshul, it would have more gore and naked chicks." Does that count?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Umm...maybe? If the publication had not previously been clear on the gore and naked chicks, definitely. But that's a moment where I'd say to myself, "Would I rather celebrate the acceptance letter and then get 'more naked chicks!' as an edit request? Uh, no!"

[seajules]

It had definitely not been clear on the gore and naked chicks factor. In fact, I'd submitted because the "what we're looking for" blurb had specified "no sword-and-sorcery, no barbarian bunnies," and indicated they were looking for more cerebral pieces. Clearly, my definition of cerebral did not match theirs.

I was glad to be rejected if gore and naked chicks were what they were really looking for, but I wonder how they expected to get that when their guidelines indicated the opposite. That could be why they folded soon after I received the rejection letter.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Cerebral. Riiiiight. Somebody is confused about which parts of the brain do what.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I talked about this a couple of days ago. The second half of this post on rejections (http://www.livejournal.com/users/copperwise/378629.html). Seriously, people on cold meds with sinus infections have read the story in question and not found it "murky" or "hard to follow." Nobody has ever been able to figure out how dumb you'd have to be not to get it.

Also had one rejected because the editor was offended that it included a fat girl and a whale. I don't understand what it's like to be fat, she said. I very nearly sent her a naked picture.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

*snrk*

I got a crit once from someone who claimed that if I'd ever known someone who'd killed themselves, I couldn't have written one of the stories I wrote. It was the story I wrote after the third person I knew killed himself, so...yah. Umm. Careful on those assumptions, there, bucko.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

[[ deeply glad not to actually be working with that person on any piece of fiction. .... It's the very best kind of rejection there is, the whew-dodged-that-bullet rejection. ]]

What a sensible attitude!

And ROTFL to the person who thought about sending that other editor the naked photo!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Every once in awhile, rejections actually do bring perspective.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I've had a few bizarro rejections, though fortunately not many. (And now that I've said that, the very next rejection I get will probably be utterly strange.) The worst, hands down, was the one that said nothing about the actual submission, but critiqued the bio. I mean, huh? *shakes head* (It was one of those rare 'zines that actually requests bios up front, and I'll admit I kind of choked while writing it because I hate bios almost as much as synopses. But still . . . )

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hey! You shouldn't have washed dishes for a year in the Yukon! Stop that! Don't have three gibbons and a stoat! You do not either aspire to parasail in Malaysia!

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

No bizarre rejections (that I can remember), but there was one funky-fonted, irregularly worded "you've won our contest" letter where I thought about writing back and asking "Can whatever you're smoking be my prize?"

(Never did receive anything other than the letter -- no publication (that I know of), no nuthin' -- but it hadn't cost me anything other than a stamp to enter, and had been an excuse to write several experimental poems, so I didn't mind as much as I might've with a more formal competition.)

Hope you feel better soon. I wish I could have helped out during your all-nighter, but spent much of the week not really wanting to talk to anyone, no matter how fun or stimulating I usually find them (and no one needs to hear me maunder on and on about my dead cat whether they've had enough sleep or not).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your well-wishes. I feel like I was amply watched over, so no one need feel sorry or guilty about not pitching in.

So do you put the Really Good Drugs Contest win in your cover letters?

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Only when I write them in crayon...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And include chocolate with them and ship them to Atlanta in August?

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

All those leftover Easter bunnies have to go somewhere.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I've had those rejections. One where my premise was described as "unbelievable and unscientific." Since I only have a Master's degree in that field, they could possibly be right, but...no. Another one disliked my cosmology. Gee, what's not to like about an Ojibwe Trickster god with a talkng penis that helps a ragged band of posthumans find another universe via a symbolic crossing of the Bering strait? Maybe there was some part of that story that was contrary to the laws of Physics, but it sure beats the heck out of me which part...

And my favorite--my very favorite--was one that critiqued my cover letter. Apparently I'm not supposed to let on to editors that I like the stories I send them. Maybe it hurts the other stories' feelings? Me, I sometimes want to reassure my editor that this envelope he's opening does not contain an attack by the Junk from the Trunk. Maybe I'm too nice.

I've found that there are certain markets that can be relied upon to send these kinds of clueless rejections. I have a feeling I know which one sent yours, judging by the time of year.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We talked about this on e-mail, but for general consumption: no, time of year has nothing to do with it this time. If you think you know what market it is based on time of year, I don't submit to that market, so I don't really want them slandered in this specific case, though I do have other differences with their handling of various things.

Clear as mud? Good.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

My mistake! All my best rejections come from that one, so I jumped to the wrong conclusion. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Other rejectors are apparently aspiring to unseat your people as the monarchs of stupid rejection. They have a lot of work ahead of them if they're going to catch up, though!

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I've only had one rejection like that. It was from a well known zine, from an editor who in the past had sent fairly helpful rejections. For this one story, my reaction, and the reaction of all the other people who'd read the story, was that he tacked the title of my story on a rejection he wrote for someone else. Not one detail he cited was right or from my story. It was so odd. He either did mix it up with another story or he literally never read it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's odd indeed. The aliens one had other details right or right-ish, so it was clearly my story they had entirely misread. I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the feeling I get when driving when someone careens around me and swerves and weaves through traffic to get ahead: You go right ahead. I'm so glad you're in front of me now. The further ahead of me you get, the happier I'll be. You *go*, man.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do that, too, yep: if it's that important to you, go right ahead.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I got one comment in a rejection saying that the editor admired the narrator's determination and commitment to her struggle. The point of the story was that the narrator was being an unbelievably naive dumbass who didn't see that she was never going to succeed. My head spent some time on the desk over that one.

And then there was one where the editor talked about how s/he disliked the first-person pov operating during parts of the story, because it was either some unspecified omniscient narrator or a god. Seems they failed to notice that first-person narrator was one of the only two named characters appearing in the third-person scenes. (Neither of whom was a god.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What is it with editors who just assume deity out of the blue?

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

Hi. Not on friendlist, but a writer type person. Yes, many rejections that made me doubt editorial judgment. Feel free to e-mail for examples.