Why Danish?

[mrissa]

Today's two rejections are noteworthy, I think, and not in a good way. Oh no. No no.

One of them, on a short novelette called "Heart-Shaped Hole": "I thought the narrator should have described what she looked like." And worse: "Why are people speaking Danish in Greenland? I thought that was confusing." And on the list of "long-standing semi-pro markets I should never submit to again"....

Can I get a YARG out there, people? YARRRRG. Why on earth would they speak Danish in Greenland, anyway? How confusing of them! To speak the language thatYARRRRRG!!!

Oh, it's just too much.

The other was a book rejection. Someone who'd read an S&3* and asked for the complete manuscript of my children's book. (Middle-grade/chapter book.) Not a word on the pre-printed card except for the title of my book. Do I understand this behavior from their perspective? Of course I do. You decide you don't want a book, you'd rather spend the time on a book you might want. And in the long-term, I'd rather that you spend the time on a book you might want, too. It's just that, in all frankness, I'd rather you wanted my book.

Book rejections suck. Short story rejections are as a tap on the wrist compared to book rejections. A shower of warm rain. Etc.

I'm going to crawl under my desk and cry. Then after that I'm going to -- guess what? Work on a damn book! That's what! Because how can I get more book rejections if I don't write more books?

muttermuttermuttermutter

*S&3=synopsis and three chapters. For those of you who don't write or submit novels, this is one of the standard things you use to pitch a novel. Synopsis, or s&3, or synopsis and first N pages (editor's/agent's choice for values of N), or complete manuscript. Very often you don't send the whole book, just a smaller segment they can read and determine if it's worth their time and your paper, ink, and postage.

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Don't you know that they speak Greenish in Greenland?

Crappity Jehosephat.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm greenish at this point. I am I am.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrggg!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Rats. *hug*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I try to make a point of not replying to rejection letters. Teaching a pig to wrestle, etc.

(My grandfather divides time-wasters into teaching a pig to sing and teaching a pig to wrestle. Both cases waste your time, but in the former case the pig is also annoyed, and in the latter case the pig might enjoy it.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I submit fiction out of sheer spite towards editors. "Reject my story, will you? I'll -- I'll -- I'll make you read another one! So there!"

[gwynnega]

YARRRRG!! Those idiots. ::John Hurt icon looks askance at them::

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

YARRRRG!

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Yarg! That's craptacular. That's...

DESCRIBE HERSELF?

I mean, Greenland topped it, but.

*sputters into another yarg*

[ckd]

Beat the editor up with a copy of Smilla's Sense of Snow.

YARG!!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I do that, too!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"I plunged into the North Atlantic to placate an angry sea goddess, my auburn tresses waving around me. My clothing plastered itself to my frigid but shapely limbs...."

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

::balrog::

Because, really, there just isn't anything to be said.

Unspeakable in the finest Lovecraftian sense.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

"... and I closed my long-lashed violet eyes against the sting of the salt water."

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

Bad editor. No no no not REAL GOCTOR.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

"...as I flailed my slender yet sweetly curved limbs."

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid you are both disqualified on the grounds of basic competence.

Something more like the "look in the mirror trick" is appropriate here.

"Before I plunged into the North Atlantic to placate an angry sea goddess, I caught sight of my reflection in the cold waters. Auburn ringlets framed an oval face, and my own violet orbs caught me in a stare that I could not let go of. Until a wave came by and splished me. Then I dove in, glad of one last chance to see my beauty reflected in the sea. Then I got caught in a rip-tide and flailed. A lot."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Very few people in my books have violet tits.

Oh, wait, were we talking about...?

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I would say I'm horrified by the editors ignorance, but I'm not sure horrified is a strong enough response.

[shawn-scarber.livejournal.com]

Yarg - first person self descriptions bug the crap out of me.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Oh, this could not possibly be the same long-standing semi-pro market that just shot to the top of my list, would it? I have to say I gave in and wrestled the pig and feel strangely invigorated for it...

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the manly dimple.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Depending on the size of the pig, it might pin you. It would probably never learn to hit you with a folding chair, though.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I think the person who made that comment should have described what he/she looked like.

[pameladean]

You stole my line!

*muttermutterjustbecauseyouLIVEtheremuttermutter*

P.

P.S. Mris: I have had copy editors that clueless, but by then it was too late to reject the book. You don't want people like that to publish your stories. They will make you wish you had not sold a book to them.

Won't they?

Well, I tried.

P.

[blzblack.livejournal.com]

Who hasn't come across the editor who majors on the minor or gets the facts wrong? I sympathize. At least you keep circulating the work. Take care.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I've run into more than one book editor who made me glad not to have sold them my book. Fortress of Thorns, for example, got a rejection letter that stated that the editor would love to see it again if I removed essentially all the fantasy content and focused it on the relationship Nate [one of three main characters] had with his mother after his father's death. Um, no thanks, no.

But this was a very short novelette, barely out of short story territory, and there really aren't many markets for novelettes.

Yaaaarrrrrggg!!!!!!!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of people are deeply attached to sensory imagery in writing. Since I'm *not* I'm not the best judge of when it would be good for many readers. However, a character having to describe *herself* is creating a lot of pretty nasy complexity (and I'm amused at the various bits of it upthread here).

I wouldn't have known off the top of my head what language they spoke in Greenland; but if I found myself writing a sentence that depends on knowing that, *I'd check*. Or just stop writing the sentence. This is because *I am not stupid*. Or at least not as stupid as some people.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no, not the same pigs you just wrestled.

Your recently-wrestled pigs have more cause than most to know about the geographic territories of the Norden, considering their location. Not that it makes them ANY LESS LAME.

Ahem. Sorry.

Re: Yaaaarrrrrggg!!!!!!!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, dear, and many of us do appreciate it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"I agree," I said, gazing soulfully into the monitor with mud-puddle brown eyes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Fretful porpentines are surprisingly cheering.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That is a very askance icon indeed.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It's true.

There's something about having a porcupine on your side that makes the world seem just that little bit more manageable.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I knew this of hedgehogs but not of porcupines.

I used to have a little silver hedgehog necklace. My uncle sent it from Sweden for my birthday. I lost it when I was 12, the day I read The Book of Merlyn, and I still miss it, uff da, so much.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I knew this of hedgehogs but not of porcupines.

I learned it from Pogo and Porky Pine.

[pameladean]

Eeee. Somebody in my very own writing group made a similar suggestion about The Secret Country. I just decided that that meant I had written the mundane bits pretty well.

As for novelettes, urgh, I hear you. When I do write short fiction, that's how it comes out. Urgh. Urgh.

P.

Re: Yaaaarrrrrggg!!!!!!!

[pameladean]

I just have to say: ROFL.

P.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Do that three. *g* "You'll read this one and you'll like it!"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If The Secret Country had continued to be about cousins with that particular game but without any genuinely fantasy content, I would still have bought The Hidden Land. But I'm glad it wasn't.

This is why I'm putting off "Singing Them Back" (well, that and Novel Eat Brain): because do I need another fantasy novelette to market? Oh goody, can I? Can I please?

Sigh.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

You're a stronger person than I.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, you really have to learn not to argue with that kind of thing, because if you write argumentative letters back for rejections, pretty soon you're writing argumentative letters back for bad reviews, and that's never going to make anybody look good. Making fun of bad reviews, sure; writing argumentative letters back, not hardly.