Thursday, November 20, 2014

The week of rejection letters

Three weeks into NaNoWriMo and my word count stands at ... 16k. Yup, just as I expected. I'm not going to make it in time.

 photo guilty_zpsbexnixre.gif

 photo misha guilty_zpscwnnzmsj.gif

 photo sorry_zpsorolsa86.gif


As Chuck Wendig said,
It's harder just not to create art than it is to actually sit down or stand there and commit. It's easier to think about creating something, or to talk about creating something, than it is to actually will yourself to that act -- a very difficult, transitional, sacrificial act. It's easier to think about stories or dream stories or imagine your published stories than it is to actually carve them letter by letter across a piece of paper.

Thinking is easy; dreaming is easier. It's the doing that feels like carving out your skin inch by inch, but it's also what gives you the most satisfaction. Now, if I could just hold on to that thought...

Literary agents, however, have had a very productive week in terms of responding to emails. At this stage, any response is better than none. I'm not really a fan of the whole "We'll reply only if we're interested" policy more and more agencies are adopting these days.

This week, I've had three rejection letters. Nice ones, but crushing nonetheless. I don't think I'll ever be immune to the sting. It's nothing personal, I know. It's just ... you feel like you were soooooo close, you know? They'd already requested the full manuscript for consideration. They liked it. It JUST. WASN'T. GOOD. ENOUGH.

 photo merida face tear_zpsvdmmy4ui.gif

 photo merida headdesk_zpsihqlvm6d.gif 

 photo zooeyweeping_zps00ecfc0f.gif

It's enough to make a writer want to give up sometimes. If your best still isn't good enough, does that mean you're just not cut out for this after all?

At least most of the agents are really kind. I've had one who called me Joshua and some who responded with just one line: not for me but thanks.


Rejection Letter #1:

Dear Joyce,

Thank you so much for submitting Until Morning to Giant Squid Books. Your novel is a fresh take on romantic YA and I have not seen many like it! However, the switching perspectives and long dream sequences did not resonate with us, so I do not think we are the right fit. I am confident that you will find a home for your novel and I wish you the best of luck.


Warmly,
Rachel 



Rejection Letter #2: 


Dear Joyce,

Thanks again for sending me UNTIL MORNING, and for your patience as I read it. I'm a big fan of Haruki Murakami, and your use of magical realism really reminded me of his work. I loved the way the characters' lives were interlaced, and how they meet inside Lexi's dreams of Sam's paintings. I thought the way you constructed their worlds was very fresh and interesting. I loved the twist of her being in a coma. Overall, I thought the concept of your book was very imaginative.

I felt like I had an immediate impression of each of their characters. Lexi seemed very free-spirited (in her dreams), while Sam has always had a lot of structure in his life and pressure from his father. I wanted to learn more about their characters, to see them develop and expand as I continued reading, and unfortunately, I didn't see that as much as I would've liked. It was interesting to learn that Lexi is much less free-spirited in real life, because it helped give more nuance and depth to the version of Lexi that appears in the dreams. However, I still didn't feel that I got to know either of their characters as deeply as I wanted to. I also felt that the way they appear to be complete opposites in the dreams, yet become close so immediately, felt a little too perfect and unrealistic. The similarities between them as well (both having a sick mother) felt a little too coincidental to be realistic.

As much as I admired the overall concept of your book, I'm afraid I didn't connect to the characters in the way I'd hoped, so I have to pass. I wish you all the best in finding the right agent and getting this published.

Best wishes,
Annie



Rejection Letter #3: 

Dear Joyce,

Thank you so much for submitting to the Collaborative. Unfortunately, while your concept is intriguing, we recently sold a project that involves a romance conducted via dreaming, and as a small company, we need to be very careful about taking on projects with too much overlap to titles already on our list. I’m sorry this wasn’t a match but I wish you the best of luck in finding the perfect home for your work!

All my best,
Annie S


Rejection Letter #4: 

Dear Joshua,


Many thanks for sending us Until Morning.
I am sorry I can’t offer to represent you at this time, but I wish you every success with your writing in the future.

Best wishes,
Gillie




 photo donghae exasperated_zpsr6ay2lfe.gif  

Can I go wallow now??

NaNo-ers, power on anyway! It's a daunting task, seeing a novel through to the end without getting held back by rejection or self-doubt, and writing is a much less lonely business during NaNo. But nothing beats reaching the end, you know that.


Also, BIIIIG thanks to everyone who stopped by with an encouraging note or remark - you don't know how much it means to a writer. *kisses you fervently*

Friday, November 14, 2014

Halfway into NaNoWriMo!

 Writing advice from Kate Brauning:
Don’t get discouraged when you’re drafting if you’re not seeing magic happen. That magical touch and those insightful moments you see in great books aren’t magic at all. They’re the result of blood and sweat. First drafts are limp and flat and awkward—that’s normal. The depth and layers come as you revise. And revise. And revise.

Ugh, limp and flat and awkward first drafts. Too much experience with that. But it's true that it gets better with each draft. You kind of figure out more stuff the more you write - the mood, the tone, the characters, their voices, their backgrounds - and all that helps you see the end more clearly.

So how is NaNoWriMo going for all my writerly friends? 

Reading Siege and Storm, book #2 of the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, is making me ache to write Indigo Tides.


It is so insanely good, much better than the first in terms of prose and pacing. I mean, it's got mythical monsters and fairy tales and an unorthodox (and callously funny) ship captain that is fast becoming my favourite character in the book. What's not to love? Plus, I love how Leigh doesn't go overboard with the sappiness between Mal and Alina - every scene, every exchange, every touch between them is significant and propels the story forward while leaving your emotions scattered everywhere.

 photo asian babies spazzing_zpslj2j4rr3.gif

 photo mishaincoherentfangirling_zps1198f4ab.gif

But that's a review for another day. I will properly gush about it then. For now,



Off to Neverland! Have a good weekend, everyone :0)

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

It's NaNoWriMo!


National Novel Writing Month entails copious cups of green tea, manic pounding of the keyboard, dreaming up scenes, talking to your characters, considering what they'd do in your shoes as you go about your life, and basically being taken over by this snarling, squalling, blossoming thing called the Work In Progress. Anything that helps churn out that 50K-word manuscript in a month.

 photo aladdin start panicking_zpsjuvemtlp.gif

WIP is going relatively well so far, considering how it had bucked and stalled like a horse that needs to poop for the first couple of drafts before I decided to take a break from it (let it, um, poop, so to speak).

Page 198 was where it succeeded in boring the brains out of me, so now I'm giving it another try, this time with a structure I've never quite dared to attempt before. Narrative within a narrative. Flashbacks (always risky). Non-linear chronology. Something like what Karen Foxlee did with The Midnight Dress.

Once I decided on this structure, it's like things finally clicked into place. This is what gets me fired up and excited to write the story! This is what's missing in the first two attempts! This is what makes me dig deeper into my characters!

Okay. *cracks knuckles* *flexes fingers* Let's do this.

 photo nickwritingletsdothis_zpscdd432e0.gif

Just so we're clear, I'm probably not going to finish 50K in one month. I'm not going to embrace that kind of insanity. But I'll just try my best and log in the daily word count and see where this takes me.

For my fellow NaNo-ers, here's some wisdom from best-selling author Chuck Wendig on the writing process:
"We wish the best for our stories. We want them to be great. We want them to win awards and climb to the top of the bestseller mountain and maybe they’ll change somebody’s life and earn us a giant sack of cash which will allow us to buy a jet-boat or an oil drum full of that very rare civet-poop coffee. Maybe a jet boat fueled by civet-shit coffee."

Yup, that's Chuck.

"... go forth and write. 
Without pressure, without fear, without the expectation of doing anything but crossing the finish line."

And some civet shit-free wisdom from Laini Taylor (please update your blog, Laini - I'm dying for some snippet of your life!):

"Imagine you’re standing at the edge of a jungle in, let’s say, Borneo (because I have a fascination with Borneo). You have a rough idea of how big this jungle is -- you’ve flown over it in a helicopter and seen dense green treecover, and you know what’s on the other side. You know where you want to get to, and you have a very vague idea of what’s IN the jungle, but you have no map, and as of yet there is no trail. What you do have is a machete, a blank roll of paper, and a grease pencil.  
There’s only one way to get to the other side of the jungle: take out your machete and start whacking. Carve your way forward and forward, sometimes sideways and sometimes back, until you get to the other side. That first time through, you’re going to come across ravines, swamps, viper nests, rivers, all sorts of things you didn’t expect and you’ll deal with them and get around them, over them, through them, in all manner of resourceful ways. And when you step out of the jungle on the far side, what you’ll have in your hand is a sprawling, wrinkled, sweat-stained mess of a map of the territory you’ve just discovered. It might not look very pretty, but it is a glorious thing, a document of discovery. You clutch it to you, and after you’ve rested and healed for a while, you go back to the far side of the jungle and. . . you start again. 
This time, with your messy map in hand, you’ll know where to go and where not to go. Some of the things you discovered your first time in, you’ll want to avoid like the plague; others will be perfect, serendipitous things that make the journey richer than you could have imagined when you set out. You’ll know your jungle/story intimately, the good and the bad, from ground level. Outlines, I think, are kind of the equivalent of aerial photography -- you get some idea, but you can’t really see what it’s like down below -- not until you’re walking through it. And when you find things to be not exactly as they had seemed from the air, you have to adapt.  
Be nimble. 
The second time through, your passage will be much more elegant than the first, and it will also be less exciting. Nothing will ever be so miserable or so thrilling as that first bushwhack. . . that first exploratory draft. The misery and the thrill are intertwined -- that’s exploration for you, taking the leeches and fevers with the discovery and getting to name islands and swamps after yourself! The second time, you’ll know what to expect. You’ll be refining your map. It will get more perfect and less exciting with each pass, and then one day you’ll be done. Done with that jungle and ready for a new one."

Yes, this analogy is perfect.

Yes, Laini Taylor is perfect.

Yes, I wish I could write like her.

Speaking of whom, yay for more Laini goodness: her short story, which is collected in this anthology called My True Love Gave to Me, has just been released!

Image from GoodReads

Laini's in good company too: Holly Black, Kelly Link, Stephanie Perkins, Myra McEntire, and more!

And you guys, the UK version has HOT PINK pages:


SO grabbing this from the bookstore.

May the writing gods be with you this NaNoWriMo! :0)