Rejection

     (This post is also a reprint, first appearing on Jaime-Kristal Lott's blog a few months ago, at: http://jkbooklover.wordpress.com  )

      Rejection.  The bane of our profession.  Those slips of paper which discourage writers, and make them question why they bother, and may even cause them to abandon their dreams.  Some don’t even get this far.  Sometimes people are so reluctant to risk rejection that they don’t send their stories out, or even allow another person to read them.

     When I’m interested in something, it very often turns into obsession.  Also, I tend to dwell on the facts, the actual statistics.  Therefore, when I decided to discuss rejections, it got me to thinking:  What was the highest number of rejections a particular unpublished story received, or an eventually published book, or the most by one author for multiple submissions?

     Obviously, determining the number of rejections isn’t as objective as something like a major league player’s home runs, or an element’s atomic weight, or how many number one hit records a musician had.  Presumably an author could save every rejection letter, and produce them if necessary, but basically I’m relying on their honesty (and the honesty of the websites that reported most of these.)  Also, I didn’t spend months researching this, so it’s entirely possible that I may have missed some.  In addition, some authors, especially under or unpublished ones, might not broadcast their totals out of embarrassment, so there’s that, too.  Without further qualification, here’s what I came up with.  Clearly, with a few exceptions, these were all fantastically successful books/authors.  Some totals include agents’ rejection along with publishers.

                      Most rejections, one manuscript/book:

1)      245  Gilbert Young, for “World Government Crusade.”  The English Mr. Young wrote this political treatise in 1958, and endured this staggering total over the next 30 years.  So many that he claimed to have run out of publishers to try.  The eventual fate of this book is a bit murky—he made the Guinness Book in the 1970’s (with the 106 rejections he’d gotten at that point), and several articles in 1988 claimed the 245 number.  However, Amazon listed this title as being published in 1988, but it was currently unavailable.  The publisher was listed as “G.Young” so I’m assuming it was self-published.

2)      217 Bill Gordon, for “How Many Books Do You Sell in Ohio?” copywrite 1986.  After achieving this total, he started his own publishing company and put this book out.  Which makes one wonder if he would have overtaken Mr. Young if he hadn’t.  Plus, is self-publishing “cheating” in this case?

3)      123 (133?)  Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, for the first “Chicken Soup for the Soul” published in 1993.  Huge bestseller, and spawned a huge series, over 200 books!  Both these men are listed as owning the publishing company that put this out, so maybe this could be considered self-published, too.

4)       121  Robert Pirsig, for “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” published in 1974.

5)       112+  Darcie Chan, for “The Mill River Recluse” published 2011.

6)       111  James Lee Burke, for “The Lost Get-Back Boogie” published in 1986.

7)       60+  Vince Flynn, for “Term Limits” self-published initially, in 1997.

8)       60 Kathryn Stockett, for “The Help” published in 2009.

9)       38  Margaret Mitchell, for “Gone With The Wind” published 1936.

10)    26 (29?) Madelaine L’ Engle, for “A Wrinkle in Time” published in 1962.

     Feeling better yet?  To defend the publishers/editors a little, we don’t know the follow-up.  Presumably, they realized later how wrong they’d been, and you’d like to think they admitted this, and apologized to the author, maybe even publicly.  Also, of course, there is the nature of creative endeavors—their subjectivity.  Some books, no matter how successful, how classic they’re considered by millions of readers, simply don’t appeal to some individuals.  Which makes the publishers wrong about how well they’d sell or be appreciated by others, but not incorrect about their personal opinion.  I’m sure we can all think of examples of best selling books which we think are actually terrible.  But most of us aren’t publishers, or magazine editors.  Anyway, here’s a few editors’ quotes to various famous and successful authors, which came back to bite them on the ass.

Rudyard Kipling:  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”  From a San Francisco Examiner editor.

Mary Higgins Clark:  “We find the heroine as boring as her husband did.”  Editor discussing “Journey Back to Love.”

H.G. Wells:  “An endless nightmare… Oh don’t read that horrible book.”  About “War of the Worlds.”

George Orwell:  “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”  About “Animal Farm.”  I’m no literature expert, but I kind of think that this book just might be a political allegory, and not a children’s book.

     Now back to numbers again.  But before I do that, as a personal aside, I wonder, which is worse—an impersonal, “doesn’t suit our current needs” form rejection letter, or an agonizingly detailed personalized one, that goes point by point about why the editor didn’t like your story? The form one in some ways is easier on the ego—it’s not insulting, and you can comfort yourself that maybe it’s sincere, maybe they liked your story but it just didn’t fit.  But, on the other hand, it is impersonal—it doesn’t give you any constructive criticism, or answer why they rejected it.  In fact, you don’t even know if anyone actually read your story in depth.  Whereas with the personalized reject, sometimes they do give good advice, that might help you change your story, and maybe get it published elsewhere.  Plus, you know someone actually did read it carefully, gave it a chance.  But it can still hurt way more than the form rejection, especially on the rare occasions when the editor is blunt, or even nasty.  When all is said and done, I prefer the personalized ones, but the explanation sometimes comes at a stiffer price.  But here are the most rejections for a single author before their first sale, for multiple submissions.

1)      7000(!)  William Saroyan.  Evidently a stack of rejections 30 inches high (I suppose this could be tested, Myth Busters-style).  Even allowing for exaggeration, that’s some damn dedication!

2)       22 years.  Gertrude Stein.  (No number of rejections given.)

3)       10 years.  Pat Barker.

4)        6 years, 85 rejections.  Steve Berry.

5)        A bad too heavy for her to carry.  Meg Cabot.  She told how she saved every rejection in a bag, her thought being when she was successful and giving public speeches, she’d use it as a visual aid.  But then she found she couldn’t lift it.  So a vague total, but surely a lot, unless Ms. Cabot is pathologically weak.

6)       Enough to tear down a nail.  Stephen King.  Mr. King stated he hung up his rejects using a nail, but eventually there were too many.  So he replaced the nail with a spike, and kept at it.

7)       Enough to wallpaper all four walls of his room.  Lee Pennington.  He doesn’t give the room’s dimensions, but still, probably quite a high total.  Kind of depressing décor, though.

8)       500 rejects, of five novels over 12 years.  Anonymous writer, told in Andre Bernard’s “Rotten Rejections” published in 1990.

As another personal aside, back when I was still snail mailing manuscripts (and I did so a good five to ten years after most writers had moved to their computers, due to my Ludditism, and paranoia about Skynet), I fairly stalked the mailman on weekends or during my usual seasonal layoffs from work.  I would check the mailbox frequently, especially if I thought I heard a noise near the front door (sometimes it was a breeze against the mailbox lid, sometimes phantoms in my mind).  Occasionally I’d even walk outside and look to see if his mail truck was on our street, or if I was driving through the neighborhood, I’d check to see if he or his truck was at least a street or two away.  Then, paradoxically, when it arrived, and there was a manuscript reply, I’d sometimes hesitate before opening, afraid of yet another rejection.  I learned to be depressed if the envelope was heavy, indicating a returned manuscript instead of a one page acceptance letter.  Of course, sometimes they did accept it, but send the manuscript back for minor edits, so that wasn’t absolute.  Now that I submit almost exclusively online, that’s changed, and I have to act semi-crazy in different ways.

                              Two entertaining anecdotes

1)      A. Wilber Stevens, later an English professor at UNLV (and a respected poet), received a particularly harsh rejection.  The editor torched his submission, and mailed back the ashes!  Now that’s cold.

2)      After E.E. Cummings’s (or e e cummings) novel “The Enormous Room” was finally published in 1922, he dedicated it, “With no thanks to:” and then listed the fifteen publishers who rejected it.  That’s a deliciously bitter “screw you” to the editors.

     Now to my personal totals.  I tallied up my numbers, and kind of depressed myself.  My total is 722 rejections, 20 acceptances, for a tidy .027 average.  Ouch!  It took me five years to get my first sale, and about 300 rejections (I didn’t figure that out exactly).  My first attempt at a novel sadly could make the first list, as it’s been rejected 63 times (publishers and agents).  But hey, I’m on the board, and I’m sure some writers have worse percentages, or even no acceptances.

     So I hope prospective, or established writers can take heart from this.  Even the most successful writers usually get their share of rejections, and pretty much every best seller was rejected at least a time or two.  Keep plugging away.  I’ll end this on a great quote by Kathryn Stockett.

     “The point is, I can’t tell you how to succeed.  But I can tell you how not to:  Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript—or painting, song, voice, dance moves (insert passion here)—in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it off for good.  I guarantee you that it won’t take you anywhere.”

Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Various Australian Animals

     Several months ago, in my post about vegemite, I referenced my 2004 trip to Australia/New Zealand.  Today I’ll return to it with the topic of this post—the meat of various Australian animals.

     This trip came about due to the actions of my close friend Dan, who I’ve been friends with since 6^th grade.  Dan moved to Brisbane, Australia, and lived there from 2003 to 2006.  I figured, when else would I have a free place to stay in Australia?  That and the usual winter layoff from work sealed the deal.  The plane ride was just as long (and expensive) as advertised—five hours to L.A., twelve hours to Auckland, N.Z., and three more to Brisbane.  Since I can’t sleep well on planes (I got maybe one hour of fitful napping), the flight was hellishly long.  However, to illustrate how bored I was by the movie, even in my desperate, entertainment-starved state, I still can’t remember how the third Matrix film ended.

     But eventually I made it, and disembarked in Brisbane.  It was an adjustment seasonally and temperature-wise, too, as I went from a Mid-Atlantic winter to the middle of an Australian summer.  Given my keen scientific curiosity (okay, full disclosure, I’d heard rumors and seen the funny “Bart vs. Australia” episode of “The Simpsons”), I was very excited about viewing the coriolis effect.  (This is the observation that water spins counterclockwise down a drain in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern (and apparently straight down in bathtubs situated exactly over the equator.))  So literally as soon as I walked inside Dan’s apartment, I went into his bathroom and observed his toilet flushing (the results were disappointingly inconclusive).  Sadly, I was wasting my time, as this effect is only visible under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

     Fortunately, Australia has interesting sights in addition to my friend’s commode.  Brisbane was fun, as was Sydney.  The late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin’s zoo was neat too—very hands on.  Visitors got to handle tame kangaroos and wallabies, feed the elephants, and even pet koala bears (who we learned, just like your pet dog, can have distinct “tickle spots” which cause their legs to move about in a comical fashion).

     Also, there was Alice Springs, smack dab in the middle of the Outback, the nearest town of any size to Uluru (aka Ayers Rock), which you’ve seen on countless postcards and documentaries on The Land Down Under.  (FYI, Uluru is definitely worth seeing, but if you’re foolish enough to go in the summer like I was, bring some netting for your head.  The bugs are absurdly annoying, and the local shops (understandably) kind of gouge you for the netting there.)

     We stayed in Alice Springs for a couple of days, and while browsing through The Lonely Planet guidebook I saw a local restaurant, The Overlanders Steakhouse, served various unusual local fauna.  Dan was a good sport, so we checked the restaurant out, and ordered their signature platter, “The Drover’s Blowout.”  Camel, crocodile, emu, and kangaroo.  Starting worst to best, the camel meat was tough and unappetizing.  The crocodile was decent but surprisingly not very similar to the alligator I’ve had.  The emu was good, too, and reminiscent of its giant flightless bird cousin, the ostrich.  The pick of the litter, though, was the kangaroo.  Very, very good—extremely tasty, with a unique flavor and nice texture.  I had the chance to try kangaroo in another restaurant as well, and it was top notch there, too.

     I really loved my time in Australia (and on the same trip, New Zealand, too), and my one week in each obviously only scratched the surface—I hope to return some day, and for longer stretches.  To summarize my dining experiences, if you like to sample new and unusual meats, aside from camel you can’t go wrong.  And hopefully visitors from far away will have a better choice of in flight movies than I did. 

Guidelines

     (This is reprint of an article that was posted on fellow Musa author Alyson Burdette's blog on June 11, 2012.  Alyson's blog address is:  http://alysonburdette.blogspot.com , and her book is "Nightfire.")

                                                            Guidelines

     Whether you’re old at heart like me, and go into the reference section of the library every year to check the latest edition of “The Writer’s Market,” or whether you’re a normal person and find sources online, an important part of the writing process is figuring out appropriate places to submit your work.  Which means you have to look at a magazine’s or publisher’s submission guidelines.  I’d say at least 90% of the time the guidelines are detailed enough and fine; everybody wins.  You don’t end up submitting your Satanic erotica to “Highlights For Children,” or your vegan recipes to “Soldier of Fortune.”

     Occasionally though, over the many years I’ve been checking guidelines, I’ve found a few that stood out, because they were, I thought, too limiting, weird, not helpful, or simple funny.  Therefore, I’d like to list some of these, and then (gently) mock them.  Bear in mind that I write mostly horror/dark fantasy/suspense/erotica, so most of the magazines/publishers printed these types of material.

                                                               Limiting

1)      “No discrimination against race, age, or gender.”  From a magazine that publishes horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.  I get that some magazine’s readership include children.  Also, there’s several kinds of horror, from 19^th century-set ghost stories, to H.P. Lovecraft style, barely seen, mostly suggested terrors, to late 20^th century splatterpunk and torture porn, and all things in between.  And I can see that the magazine doesn’t want, say, Aryan skinhead manifestos, or the like.  But seriously, no discrimination against race, gender and age?!  So your vampire can kill people, but she can’t deny a person employment because they’re over 60?

2)       Along the same lines, the general guidelines of horror magazines/publishers, sometimes listed as being “edgy,” and “terrifying,” horror, that say no to any graphic language, violence, sex, or gore.  Kind of like the previous one, I understand that not every story has to be “R” rated, or even “PG,” but come on!  No gratuitous profanity, sex, violence, etc., seems like a reasonable request, but having absolutely none of these elements ever must leave some awfully watered-down, tame horror stories.

3)       A magazine which published largely erotica said, “No ‘cute’ or ‘sweet,’ or crude, or sex fantasies.”  So a writer had to hit that narrow medium every time, I guess.

4)       Regional limitations.  I can acknowledge that certain publications want to cater to their area, and maybe even solely feature authors from that area.  If it’s say, Canada, okay, but I saw one magazine that only accepted authors from one California city.  So why even advertise in nationally seen books like “The Writer’s Market?”  Kind of a tease.

5)       “Synopsis of not more than 25 words.”  For novellas, novels, etc.  Asking this as an exercise might have merit, if it’s combined with a normal length synopsis, but just this alone?  Can they really tell much about the book from this?

6)      A magazine with “Mormon” in its subtitle, put out by a Mormon literary society, said it was “Mormon-based, but not religious.”  This seems a little disingenuous, since they can’t stop mentioning their religion.

                                   

                                                                 Weird

1)      “Not looking for stories with emphasis on drugs, murder, rape, and body piercing.”  Seems like one of these words is not like the others—can you tell which one?

2)      “No religion, anti-religion, or evolutionary,” for a horror and suspense publication.  Seems oddly precise—talk about not wanting to discuss a sometimes inflammatory political issue.

3)       Like many erotica publications, this one said while they welcomed graphic sexuality, they drew the line (as most do) at “rape, pedophilia, and necrophilia.”  Reasonable so far, but then, “No knives in vaginas.”(!)  The fact that the publication put this in their guidelines is kind of disturbing, and weirdly specific.  Apparently they’ve received many stories with this occurrence.

4)       Another erotica publication specifies, “No excessive profanity, golden showers, scat, ….and felching.”  If you don’t know what the last one is, don’t google it at work, or while you’re eating.

5)       A sci-fi and horror magazine says “no porn or advert gore.”  Advert?  Did they mean “overt”?  “Advertising” gore?  Maybe it’s a typo, or if not it’s an expression I’m not familiar with.

6)       “Things that are shocking, dark, lewd, comic, or even insane are okay as long as the fiction is controlled and purposeful.”  So fiction by a crazy person is fine, as long as their stories are spelled and punctuated correctly, are grammatically correct, have a beginning, middle, and end, and the main character has an arc, etc.

7)      “Audience is anyone concerned with the moral fiber of our country,” and the magazine will publish anything of “Relevance to the growing psychic problem in America today.  Be honest and urgent.”  I submitted to these folks, and they were actually cool to deal with, but to this day I have no idea what those quoted guidelines mean.

8)      “Taboos include rape, except in prison, where it’s a reality.”  Rape isn’t realistic anywhere else?

                                                               Not Helpful

1)      “Well plotted, memorable characters.”  I know that all publications are looking for these things, but is this going to benefit anyone?  Doesn’t pretty much everyone think that stories are well plotted with interesting characters?

2)       “No boredom.”  Similar to the last one, or worse.  Maybe some will acknowledge that their plotting, say, is weak, but does any writer think that their story is boring?  Will this discourage anyone?

3)       “Send your best.”  In theory, again, I see why they say this, but how many authors can overcome their biases toward their own stories?

4)       “No stories that are not well written.”  Same as above.

                                                               Funny

1)      Stories with “Profound terror and sexual delirium.”  I find this strangely poetic.

2)      Stories which “hurt you, and hurt you to read.”  Again, I like the way this sounds.

3)      From a defunct (?) magazine, “Graffiti Off the Asylum Walls” (great name).  “Send us stuff you’re afraid to show your mother, priest, and shrink.”

4)      “Keep the blood and slime to a minimum.”  So in your stories featuring snails or “Slimer” from “Ghostbusters,” put these characters more in the background.

5)      The magazine wants stories with, “blood, sex and tentacles.”  Perfect for all your S&M octopus orgy tales!  Actually, this referred to the “Cthulhu” character that Lovecraft created, as the magazine was named, “Cthulhu Sex Magazine” (sadly closed now).  You didn’t have to have all three elements in every submission, though—the story of mine that they published just had necrophilia (between humans, not squid) as its main theme.

     To defend these publishers a little, I recognize that I have no experience putting out a magazine or book, and that they have to slog through thousands of submissions, of varying quality, with authors that are often rude, unprofessional, and possibly sociopathic.  I’m just saying that maybe in some cases they might have wanted to edit their guidelines a tad.  I’m sure any writer who read this can think of other examples of these types of things—I’d be interested in hearing them.

Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Chocolate with Chili

     I was wandering around a Publix supermarket for the first time recently, and came up with a new topic for an exotic/disgusting food.  (FYI, Publix is a very good market, based largely in the SE U.S.  Another place to get spotted dick, for example.  Wait, let me rephrase that—they have a good variety of food and drink items, including English foods with names begging to be double entendred.)  Anyway, in the candy aisle I beheld, next to the usual bars, chocolate chili—“dark chocolate infused with spicy red chili.”  I couldn’t resist this odd mix and bought it straight away.

     While doing my usual half-assed research on the particular food item I’m going to post about, I discovered this combination isn’t as weird as it may have initially looked.  Because the original developers of chocolate, the people of South and Central America, were used to a much different sort of chocolate than most modern folks are.  Throughout most of chocolate’s history (at lease 3,000 years), it was a bitter drink.  The Aztecs refined this further by adding spices, including chili pepper.  It was the Europeans who added sugar and milk to sweeten it, and later developed a way to form it into solid bars, like the candy most of us are familiar with.  So, the good people at Lindt & Sprungli were actually kicking it old school, so to speak, but offering up their chocolate chili combo.

     I gave it a taste, and was very favorably impressed.  I’m normally more of proponent of light, or milk chocolate rather than dark chocolate, but this was very good—the slight bitterness was not unpleasant at all.  And, just like the package said, the chili spice comes in at the end, giving it a cool but not overpowering “bite.”  So chalk up another victory for opposites complimenting and completing each other in a new, different way.  And normally I might be inclined to mock anyone who calls themselves a “Master Chocolatier,” but the quality of these Swiss folks’ product shut me right the hell up.  Rumor has it that this company (or another gourmet chocolate company) makes a chocolate-bacon baby, and I’m hoping to get a hold of that one, too.

Blog Schedule For Week of August 19th-25th.

     Since this is my release week ("Kaishaku" will be published on Friday, August 24th), I'll be doing more blog posts than usual, some on other folk's blogs.  Here is the schedule:
     Monday, August 20th:  Author interview at Jaime-Kristal Lott's Blog:  http://jkbooklover.wordpress.com
    Thursday, August 23rd: Character interview on Musa's blog:  http://musapublishing.blogspot.com
   Friday, August 24th: Horror Author/Movie trivia on Clarissa Johal's blog: http://clarissajohal.blogspot.com
   Saturday, August 25th: "Kaishaku" blurb/excerpt on Musa's blog again.  (same address as above.)

    In addition I'll be putting up another "Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum" post here on Monday or Tuesday, and a post on writer's guidelines on Thursday or Friday.

Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Pig's Feet

     Given what hot dogs, sausage, scrapple, head cheese etc. are made from (i.e. pork and beef scraps/organs), it shouldn’t surprise anyone that people also eat pig’s feet.  In fact, of the exotic/disgusting foods I’ve written about, pig’s feet are by far the easiest to get—practically every supermarket I’ve been to stocks them, usually from the folks at Hormel.  So, sure, the idea may sound a little nasty, but enough people must be buying them to result in their near-universal availability.  The internet sites I looked at claimed they were more a staple in soul food, traditional U.S. Southern, and Korean cooking, but clearly pig’s feet have found enough fans across the country.  Also, since the recent financial crisis, they’ve evidently enjoyed a popularity boom in the U.K. as well.

     Pig’s feet can be prepared in several ways, but the way I had them was pickled in vinegar, prepackaged in a glass jar.  I won’t sugarcoat it—they looked pretty repulsive, bobbing about in their briny liquid.  Their preparation resulted in them being extremely tender—the meat fell apart easily from the bones.  The taste was okay.  Obviously it was vinegary, but basically it was similar to other pork cuts.  It wasn’t my favorite way to eat pork products, and I don’t think I’ll buy them regularly, but I would be willing to have them again.

     I must say, though, that the bones gave me a bit of a pause.  From my work as an archaeologist I’ve exhumed many graves, and I was shocked at how similar the toes of a pig are to the toes of a human.  Really, the resemblance was uncanny.  But I was able to push past this pseudo-cannibalistic tone and finish the pig’s feet.

     Also, as a marketing tip, I would advise sellers of this product to stay away from the alternative name, which is “trotters.”  At least in the NE U.S. (maybe the entire U.S.?  Other places too?), this is unfortunately close to the “trots,” which is a euphemism for a bout of diarrhea.  Granted, “pig’s feet” isn’t such an appetizing term either, but in comparison it’s much better.

     One final tidbit.  For those who love this type of pork, I would recommend the Hakata Tonton restaurant in NYC.  Of the 39 dishes they offer, 33 of them contain pig’s feet.

Blog Hop Contest Results

     I'd like to announce the winner of the free copy of "Dead Reckoning"--it's Sharon Ledwith.  Congrats Sharon--I'll be in touch and we can transfer that copy over to you.  I'd also like to stay thanks to everyone who stopped by and participated in the "I Love Horror/Paranormal Novellas Blog Hop", both here and at the many other authors' blogs.  I know I found this blog hop to be very informative and entertaining, and I'm looking forward to the next one.  And thanks once more to Jolie Du Pre at Precious Monsters for organizing and hosting this blog hop.