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Mar. 8th, 2004 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
The Masses... or at least Batty, Darkk, 'Spur, Bax, Teph, my office mates Mark and Dave, and Mrs. Haines, retired teacher of English, apple pie baker and Mom extrordinaire, have spoken. And as in one voice, they have said "Well, for Heavens' Sakes, if you need a break, TAKE A DAMNED BREAK!" Only Mom didn't say "damned," of course.
Thanks, guys. It's good advice.
Here's the boring self-analysis part.
I go psycho on a fairly regular basis, and when I do it's nearly always one of two things; an extended stretch of cloudy weather, or one of these mindspins. When my mind is caught in an infinite loop because I'm facing some unsolvable paradox.
The most recent one was: I can't keep going, but I have to keep going.
I let myself be convinced of the truth of a lot of bullpuckey that writers put out about writing. In part this was deliberate, since I felt I had to believe these things too if I was going to make it.
Writing, they say, has to be an all-encompassing passion. You have to put, oh, ten or twenty hours a week into it minimum, every week. And by the way, you have to learn to LIKE rejection. If you were to believe what a lot of writers have written on the subject, they have massive orgasms whenever they get a rejection letter, and the more personal and cutting it is, the more they like it.
As for the money part, money is something I want out of my writing, but only in a backhanded sort of way. I'm afraid getting paid for my writing is the only way I'll ever be convinced that it is professional grade. As I've said before, I can get friends to read my stuff. Most anyone who bothers to read this would be willing to read some of my stories, or maybe even the novels, if I asked them. And I can give my work away free to things such as con books, to people who don't really want it but need to fill up some column-inches. That's easy enough, although rather thankless. I can get all of that I want. But if some disinterested professional buys my story, they MEAN it when they say it's good.
Beyond that token, I guess the money isn't important to me, unless and until I get to the point where I'm pulling in enough from writing that I could earn a living from it. Given my recent mindspin I'm not sure that would be a good idea, even if I could do it. Read on.
Guilt and anger were tearing me apart. Guilt, because I wasn't putting enough work into my writing to get published. And I couldn't work any harder on it. I have a full time job already. I have family obligations. I have to keep pouring hours and labor into Ugly House to keep it from crumbling into the mound of wood compost it seems determined to become. (Houses, they say, are either going up or coming down. If you're not pounding on yours nearly every week, it's coming down.) I have to take a bloody VACATION once in a while too. So there's paradox number one: I have to work harder, I can't work harder.
Paradox number two was that, as much as I owed my work to others, I was getting nothing of what those others owed me. I owed it to the industry and to the world to get this stuff out, to get published. And I find I was obsessed with the rewards. The publication, the recognition, the people out there reading my story and enjoying it, even perhaps enough money out of the deal to buy a nice fountain pen. I'd signed the contract, I'd done the work, and the damned industry hadn't paid me the...
Wait a minute. There wasn't any contract. I never signed anything. And if there's no contract, and nobody is paying me (in money or otherwise), I'm under no obligation to do the work.
OK, now we've found the basic cause of the problem. I thought I owed The World my stories. But I don't. I don't owe anybody a damned thing. If you read my stuff and you enjoy it, I'm rewarded as much as I could hope for. But I'm not under any obligation whatsoever to give you more stuff to read. Nor are you obliged to read it. Nor, if you read it, are you obliged to enjoy it. And whether you enjoy it or not, you're not obliged to tell me so. This is all strictly voluntary, on all sides. Given that I'm not paying you, you should only read my stuff if it's fun. Given that you're not paying me, I should only write it if I enjoy it.
Wow. One of the most terrible obligations I ever felt I had, all that guilt, all that frustration and futility because I couldn't give you what I owed, and it isn't even real. Well, that's about par for the course, I guess. You seldom have people getting their knickers in a twist (pardon the Britticism) over real problems the way they do over fictional ones-- political philosophies, fine shades of religious belief, that sort of thing. My phantom issues are just a bit more personal than most, I guess.
So there you are. I'm going to keep writing when I feel like it, and when it is done, it's done. And that's OK. Which is how it was all along, but I was in another of these paradox-driven mindspins, and I couldn't see it.
As for the other thing I was complaining of, the brutality of editors-- Bax, I was right to delete that rant. In the first place, there wasn't a heck of a lot of truth in it. In the second, it's something like the Teen Angst that shows up in a million journal accounts, poems, and such. It may be true, but it's only been said about a hundred million times.
Here's another thing I need to remind myself; the fact that something is true in no way obligates me to say it. Some truths are useless to point out. Some are harmful, causing pain and outrage without the hope of prompting anyone to fix the problem-- if indeed the problem can be fixed; many can't. Most are too well known already to bother with.
And dagnappit, like everything I write, I hope this silly little journal entertains people. Rants don't do that, unless 2 does them. As in any field, you have your artists, and most of us aren't. I'm not an artist in rants. Mine are just futile and boring. Although the bit about the zookeepeers coming twice a day to hose the slime out of terrarium the editor lived in was rather amusing, I thought.
***
Bax was kind enough to send me to a weblog that had an editor commenting on some site-- this is going to be rough to write, because I lost the link.
There is a web site out there that posts the snotty outrageous rejection letters some writers get. And the writer's reaction to the letter, how it made him or her feel. An editor at Tor wrote a reply in a web log, something called Slushkiller or something of the sort. About how writers should chill and not take it so personally. I read the article, and many of the hundreds of replies. I shouldn't comment on the whole issue, but I will.
First, it's not quite fair for editors to object that writers shouldn't take rejection letters personally because it's not personal, it's just the system. I would buy that if the editors hadn't set up that system. But they did set it up-- certainly the writers didn't!-- so they share responsibility for it.
Especially when many features of the system are set up, with malice, to make things hard for writers, just to reduce the number of submissions that the editors must face.
There are many ways editors do this. They refuse unagented submissions, or submissions from unpublished authors under any circumstances. They refuse submissions except during one month a year. They refuse e-submissions. They force you to pay postage to send a paper manuscript, and then they force you to pay return postage on a manuscript you don't want back. (This is the computer age, people. It costs me about $0.25 to burn a new copy of a short story manuscript, and $4.00 to pay you to mail it back. Just pitch the thing! But no, you won't.)
Some web sites I've seen quite frankly state they do this to discourage people from submitting, to "raise the bar." You're telling us we're so worthless that you feel safe in forcing 99% of us to never submit our work at all; that the one in a hundred willing to jump through all hoops, no matter how silly, is more than enough to meet your needs. I'm sorry, I can't see that as anything but insulting.
Of course, it IS true that there are so many writers out there that it's safe for editors to just dismiss 99% at random. Everyone can write, or thinks s/he can. Everyone who wants one can have a word processor. There are more and more writers each year, and fewer and fewer readers. This is all true, but it hardly makes writers feel kindly toward the editors who dismiss us so easily.
I was amused that a lot of the editors who commented on the Slushkillers article were all huffy and outraged. "I can't believe they'd post that rejection letter on the internet where anyone can see it. And with their own name attached. They'd better hope the editor who wrote that never sees it there! That writer will get a reputation as Hard to Work With, and word will get around, and no editor will ever publish their work. Editors do talk to each other, you know."
Well, in the first place, who's taking things too personally now? We are, in fact, treated shamefully. Let us complain. It's the only pleasure most of us will ever get out of the deal.
Second, this threat to blackball a writer who dares complain presupposes belief in a Great Editor's Cabal which keeps track of all potential writers. That somewhere there's a file cabinet with my name on a 3x5 card, with little black marks checked beside it for each time I failed to include return postage, or complained, or misused a gerund (whatever they are), or failed to write at thank-you note for a rejection slip (which, believe it or not, many writers think they need to do. I'm not sure editors agree).
Now.. is this whole rejection thing impersonal or isn't it? If someone really is keeping track of us all, then we have a right to take this personally. But I thought the whole point of the article was that nobody's doing that.
If that blacklisting comment came from an editor-- for shame! Somewhere along the line you failed in your Being Human lessons. Especially the abuse of power parts. You have terrible power over us, whether you want it or not. Use it wisely.
If it came from a writer, as it probably did, reread the article. There is no Great Editor's Cabal, that's the point of the whole discussion.
Finally, I found one comment that I've also heard a hundred times, and it is so ridiculous I can't let it pass.
"We love getting rejection letters! If I got a rejection letter like that, I'd be SO happy!"
Bullpuckey. We spend weeks, even years, trying to perfect something so it will NOT garner a rejection letter. Is that hard work consistant with the idea that we like them?
So why do we say we do? Because it's expected of us. Because we fear the editors, we fear their whims. It's just the sort of thing you say to a boss you fear more than respect. Even the slaves picking cotton sang as they did it, because they knew they had to give the boss what he wanted to hear.
Well, enough on that. If there IS a Great Editor's Cabal, I guess I'm sunk now, but.. I don't think so. In any case I'm off to work on a little piece of specialized erotica for somebody-- don't ask, it does not and never will have my name on it, and if I or any of my readers are caught or killed, I will disavow all knowledge of my actions.
Or maybe I'll go edit a page or two on the novels. If I want to. If I don't want to, I won't. Nyahhhhh.
Thanks, guys. It's good advice.
Here's the boring self-analysis part.
I go psycho on a fairly regular basis, and when I do it's nearly always one of two things; an extended stretch of cloudy weather, or one of these mindspins. When my mind is caught in an infinite loop because I'm facing some unsolvable paradox.
The most recent one was: I can't keep going, but I have to keep going.
I let myself be convinced of the truth of a lot of bullpuckey that writers put out about writing. In part this was deliberate, since I felt I had to believe these things too if I was going to make it.
Writing, they say, has to be an all-encompassing passion. You have to put, oh, ten or twenty hours a week into it minimum, every week. And by the way, you have to learn to LIKE rejection. If you were to believe what a lot of writers have written on the subject, they have massive orgasms whenever they get a rejection letter, and the more personal and cutting it is, the more they like it.
As for the money part, money is something I want out of my writing, but only in a backhanded sort of way. I'm afraid getting paid for my writing is the only way I'll ever be convinced that it is professional grade. As I've said before, I can get friends to read my stuff. Most anyone who bothers to read this would be willing to read some of my stories, or maybe even the novels, if I asked them. And I can give my work away free to things such as con books, to people who don't really want it but need to fill up some column-inches. That's easy enough, although rather thankless. I can get all of that I want. But if some disinterested professional buys my story, they MEAN it when they say it's good.
Beyond that token, I guess the money isn't important to me, unless and until I get to the point where I'm pulling in enough from writing that I could earn a living from it. Given my recent mindspin I'm not sure that would be a good idea, even if I could do it. Read on.
Guilt and anger were tearing me apart. Guilt, because I wasn't putting enough work into my writing to get published. And I couldn't work any harder on it. I have a full time job already. I have family obligations. I have to keep pouring hours and labor into Ugly House to keep it from crumbling into the mound of wood compost it seems determined to become. (Houses, they say, are either going up or coming down. If you're not pounding on yours nearly every week, it's coming down.) I have to take a bloody VACATION once in a while too. So there's paradox number one: I have to work harder, I can't work harder.
Paradox number two was that, as much as I owed my work to others, I was getting nothing of what those others owed me. I owed it to the industry and to the world to get this stuff out, to get published. And I find I was obsessed with the rewards. The publication, the recognition, the people out there reading my story and enjoying it, even perhaps enough money out of the deal to buy a nice fountain pen. I'd signed the contract, I'd done the work, and the damned industry hadn't paid me the...
Wait a minute. There wasn't any contract. I never signed anything. And if there's no contract, and nobody is paying me (in money or otherwise), I'm under no obligation to do the work.
OK, now we've found the basic cause of the problem. I thought I owed The World my stories. But I don't. I don't owe anybody a damned thing. If you read my stuff and you enjoy it, I'm rewarded as much as I could hope for. But I'm not under any obligation whatsoever to give you more stuff to read. Nor are you obliged to read it. Nor, if you read it, are you obliged to enjoy it. And whether you enjoy it or not, you're not obliged to tell me so. This is all strictly voluntary, on all sides. Given that I'm not paying you, you should only read my stuff if it's fun. Given that you're not paying me, I should only write it if I enjoy it.
Wow. One of the most terrible obligations I ever felt I had, all that guilt, all that frustration and futility because I couldn't give you what I owed, and it isn't even real. Well, that's about par for the course, I guess. You seldom have people getting their knickers in a twist (pardon the Britticism) over real problems the way they do over fictional ones-- political philosophies, fine shades of religious belief, that sort of thing. My phantom issues are just a bit more personal than most, I guess.
So there you are. I'm going to keep writing when I feel like it, and when it is done, it's done. And that's OK. Which is how it was all along, but I was in another of these paradox-driven mindspins, and I couldn't see it.
As for the other thing I was complaining of, the brutality of editors-- Bax, I was right to delete that rant. In the first place, there wasn't a heck of a lot of truth in it. In the second, it's something like the Teen Angst that shows up in a million journal accounts, poems, and such. It may be true, but it's only been said about a hundred million times.
Here's another thing I need to remind myself; the fact that something is true in no way obligates me to say it. Some truths are useless to point out. Some are harmful, causing pain and outrage without the hope of prompting anyone to fix the problem-- if indeed the problem can be fixed; many can't. Most are too well known already to bother with.
And dagnappit, like everything I write, I hope this silly little journal entertains people. Rants don't do that, unless 2 does them. As in any field, you have your artists, and most of us aren't. I'm not an artist in rants. Mine are just futile and boring. Although the bit about the zookeepeers coming twice a day to hose the slime out of terrarium the editor lived in was rather amusing, I thought.
***
Bax was kind enough to send me to a weblog that had an editor commenting on some site-- this is going to be rough to write, because I lost the link.
There is a web site out there that posts the snotty outrageous rejection letters some writers get. And the writer's reaction to the letter, how it made him or her feel. An editor at Tor wrote a reply in a web log, something called Slushkiller or something of the sort. About how writers should chill and not take it so personally. I read the article, and many of the hundreds of replies. I shouldn't comment on the whole issue, but I will.
First, it's not quite fair for editors to object that writers shouldn't take rejection letters personally because it's not personal, it's just the system. I would buy that if the editors hadn't set up that system. But they did set it up-- certainly the writers didn't!-- so they share responsibility for it.
Especially when many features of the system are set up, with malice, to make things hard for writers, just to reduce the number of submissions that the editors must face.
There are many ways editors do this. They refuse unagented submissions, or submissions from unpublished authors under any circumstances. They refuse submissions except during one month a year. They refuse e-submissions. They force you to pay postage to send a paper manuscript, and then they force you to pay return postage on a manuscript you don't want back. (This is the computer age, people. It costs me about $0.25 to burn a new copy of a short story manuscript, and $4.00 to pay you to mail it back. Just pitch the thing! But no, you won't.)
Some web sites I've seen quite frankly state they do this to discourage people from submitting, to "raise the bar." You're telling us we're so worthless that you feel safe in forcing 99% of us to never submit our work at all; that the one in a hundred willing to jump through all hoops, no matter how silly, is more than enough to meet your needs. I'm sorry, I can't see that as anything but insulting.
Of course, it IS true that there are so many writers out there that it's safe for editors to just dismiss 99% at random. Everyone can write, or thinks s/he can. Everyone who wants one can have a word processor. There are more and more writers each year, and fewer and fewer readers. This is all true, but it hardly makes writers feel kindly toward the editors who dismiss us so easily.
I was amused that a lot of the editors who commented on the Slushkillers article were all huffy and outraged. "I can't believe they'd post that rejection letter on the internet where anyone can see it. And with their own name attached. They'd better hope the editor who wrote that never sees it there! That writer will get a reputation as Hard to Work With, and word will get around, and no editor will ever publish their work. Editors do talk to each other, you know."
Well, in the first place, who's taking things too personally now? We are, in fact, treated shamefully. Let us complain. It's the only pleasure most of us will ever get out of the deal.
Second, this threat to blackball a writer who dares complain presupposes belief in a Great Editor's Cabal which keeps track of all potential writers. That somewhere there's a file cabinet with my name on a 3x5 card, with little black marks checked beside it for each time I failed to include return postage, or complained, or misused a gerund (whatever they are), or failed to write at thank-you note for a rejection slip (which, believe it or not, many writers think they need to do. I'm not sure editors agree).
Now.. is this whole rejection thing impersonal or isn't it? If someone really is keeping track of us all, then we have a right to take this personally. But I thought the whole point of the article was that nobody's doing that.
If that blacklisting comment came from an editor-- for shame! Somewhere along the line you failed in your Being Human lessons. Especially the abuse of power parts. You have terrible power over us, whether you want it or not. Use it wisely.
If it came from a writer, as it probably did, reread the article. There is no Great Editor's Cabal, that's the point of the whole discussion.
Finally, I found one comment that I've also heard a hundred times, and it is so ridiculous I can't let it pass.
"We love getting rejection letters! If I got a rejection letter like that, I'd be SO happy!"
Bullpuckey. We spend weeks, even years, trying to perfect something so it will NOT garner a rejection letter. Is that hard work consistant with the idea that we like them?
So why do we say we do? Because it's expected of us. Because we fear the editors, we fear their whims. It's just the sort of thing you say to a boss you fear more than respect. Even the slaves picking cotton sang as they did it, because they knew they had to give the boss what he wanted to hear.
Well, enough on that. If there IS a Great Editor's Cabal, I guess I'm sunk now, but.. I don't think so. In any case I'm off to work on a little piece of specialized erotica for somebody-- don't ask, it does not and never will have my name on it, and if I or any of my readers are caught or killed, I will disavow all knowledge of my actions.
Or maybe I'll go edit a page or two on the novels. If I want to. If I don't want to, I won't. Nyahhhhh.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 05:30 am (UTC)I think I said that editors tell us we shouldn't take rejections personally, but that editors also shouldn't take it personally when we writers complain bitterly about it. Recognizing that our anger can't really be directed against them personally in a system which they themselves set up to be as impersonal as possible. Let's have a little balance here. If we aren't to take things personally, neither should they.
I don't think I said anything about how editors should handle rejections in a more humane manner. But if you asked me for some specific suggestions, I might say:
1. If you're going to lie, don't make it a stupid lie. Don't get my novel back to me in four days (using regular post, no less, not overnight) and claim you rejected it after a thorough review.
2. On the other hand, basic professionalism should encourage you to handle submissions in under a year. Two and a half years, including losing the entire manuscript once, deserves an apology letter. Even if I am just a writer. You don't have to buy it, but you should handle things in a professional manner, and if you screw up you should admit it.
3. Keep it short. If you're going to buy it, send a check. If you aren't, just say something like "Sorry to disappoint you, but our company has decided not to buy this." If you feel compelled to discourse upon how bad the writing is, do so in sufficient detail that the writer can gain some useful information from your critique. If instead you feel tempted to write a half-line blast about how bad it is, one with no useful information.. shut the hell up.
4. And for gods'sakes, do NOT say "It just didn't catch my attention." You say you don't want this rejection taken personally, but you have just told the writer that you, and only you, are the problem. You've made it nothing BUT personal.
As for people who claim to like rejections.. I msyelf got one I liked. It was full of useful information on how to improve things and what markets might suit me better. The editor went far beyond the call of duty. I was immensely grateful, and I wrote a nice letter saying so.
But that's not what most people I've heard seemed to mean when they said they like rejections. They just said they like them, and that's as far as they took it. I think they're afraid of the Great Editor's Cabal (taht doesn't exist). Or they're trying to be professional in the only way they know how. They're trying to be ingratiating, as you say, or they're just saying it because it's something pro writers say, so they feel they have to say it themselves.
Or they're trying to keep up their spirits, whistling as they walk through the graveyard.
Regardless, though, saying you like a rejection, however personal and useful it might be, is at its best trying to make the best of a heartbreak. I say again that, considered as an issue all by itself, if writers did in fact like rejections, they wouldn't do everything in their power to avoid getting them.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 06:21 am (UTC)I entirely agree that it is unfair for editors to take offense at remarks about rejections, if they themselves say it it's all impersonal. My impression was that in those comments they were generally more amused than hurt, but your point stands. No disagreement from me on this point.
Looking back, I see that I phrased my question about dealing with submissions very badly. What I meant to say was: if you don't like the current method of making hoops for writers to jump through, what do you think would be a better way to keep the level of submissions manageable? Now, though, I see that you didn't actually say that you think the hoop system should be changed, so if you don't believe that it should, my question was pointless as well as poorly worded.
As to your suggestions:
1. I'm torn about the four day consideration of the novel. I can imagine situations where that could be appropriate. If, for instance, they had only budgeted for a certain number of novels of a certain category, and had already accepted others. On the other hand, it could definitely be very frustrating, and I don't know how common my example would be. I do agree, though, that stupid lies are bad. :)
2. I'm not well acquainted with typical wait times, but it seems to me that two and a half years certainly qualifies for an apology. (I can't help but wonder, though, if by that point, they were just too embarrassed to do anything more.)
3. Insulting the manuscript is clearly wrong, I agree, and foolish, besides. There is (probably!) no Writer's Cabal, either, but you'd think word would get around.
4. "It just didn't catch my attention" might annoy me because of its lack of detail, but I don't see how it is personal except in that it admits that one person did indeed read and reject it. When people say "don't take rejections personally," I interpret it as "don't be insulted, it's not about you" and not any kind of statement about the rejector (except that they don't hate you in particular).
Regarding rejections: I guess we've been talking to different people, then. :) From what you say, it does sound as if the people you're talking about are a bit... intimidated. Or confused. I still maintain that it's possible to be encouraged by some rejections while still liking acceptance better, but I definitely agree that writers do not like rejections, on the whole.
Gen