Older Dog Wisdom # 12: Surfing in the Car

Now that Tux is nearly the Alpha Dog in the family, he has one Alpha Dog duty to take from Grace, his sister and heretofore Alpha Dog, to complete his coup. Last on his list is the need to become the family’s surfer dog.

Three years ago, Grace started putting her front paws on the console between the front seats of the car. She quickly learned to lean into turns much like a motorcycle rider. She knows to lean back when I applied the brakes. It’s been her spot and her sport. She's a pro at it.

When she injured a front paw, she wasn’t able to surf the streets because it was too painful for her. Tux immediately tried to take over the position, but Grace was having none of that. She’d bump against him, knocking him to the side where he belonged. Even though she couldn’t surf, she wasn’t about to give up her last vestige of Alpha Dog status if she could help it.

I’m not sure what Grace’s strategy was this morning when she let him have the surfer’s spot. He proudly put his front paws on the console. and waited to surf. I’m pretty sure I heard a “nanner, nanner, nanner” escape his lips. Then, I realized there was a method to Grace’s madness. She knew exactly what she was doing. I pulled out of the driveway and as I started to make the turn into the street, Tux fell off not only the console but the back seat as well. He was dumped unceremoniously into the well behind the driver’s seat. At least his fall was cushioned by the stack of cloth grocery sacks I keep there. I pulled to the side of the road, and turned to check that he was okay and came nose to nose with Grace. She was ready to resume her position as car surfer extraordinaire. I swear I heard her whisper “nanner, nanner, nanner.”

Lessons Learned

As writers, we are often anxious to get our publishing career on the road as quickly as possible. We no sooner have our first book written than we start querying agents. We are assuming the role of accomplished writer long before we know what we’re doing very much like Tux assumed that he was ready to be surfer dog.

Like Tux, we need to practice and hone our craft first. We need to edit our manuscripts and then edit them again. We can’t just assume that because we read books and know published authors that we can accomplish what they have by watching them do it.

Tux learned, with a hit to his dignity, that surfing in the car is no easy task. It looks a lot easier than it is. It takes practice to stay in place through all the twists and turns taken from the house to our destination.

Receiving rejections from agents is our equivalent of taking that hit to one’s dignity and ego. It doesn’t mean we should stop writing. It means we should keep writing until our writing is what they want.

Crossing the Bridge Called Rejection

Handling Rejection

How do you handle rejection? There are so many forms that rejection can take, and regardless of the kind of rejection you face, it is always hard, very hard, to get over the hurt.

As writers, we’re told that we need to get used to being rejected. First, there are our beta readers who may - or may not - like the books we’ve worked so hard on for so many long months. We know we shouldn’t it take personally because we’re told that every time we turn around. So we’re gracious, we thank our beta readers, and we send the manuscript to someone else to read.

No Judgmental Agents

When we’ve made our way through our beta readers, then it’s time for the critique groups who can, and should, be critical of our efforts. After that, perhaps you hire a freelance editor to read the book. Then, we think we’re ready to send out a query letter to the agent of our choice. So we write a letter to the agent asking her to represent our book to publishers. What we get back is a rejection letter, if we’re lucky - there are times when we may not even hear from the agent - ever. The agent assures us that she’s not passing judgement on our work, it’s just not right for her. She tells us to keep sending out letters to other agents.

Post Rejection Blues

It was one thing for our critique group and/or our beta readers to say they didn’t care for our book, it’s quite another, after months of revising and rewriting the manuscript, for an agent to say that she’s just not that interested.

It’s hard not to wonder if we’ve wasted our time. If an agent doesn’t like our manuscript, and she’s only seen, at best, five or ten pages of the whole, why continue? All that time trying to find the wherewithal to continue, all that time working alone, all the revisions and it’s been rejected by a professional.

Cross the Bridge, and Get over Yourself

Somehow, though, after a few days of wondering if, or whether, we can continue writing, we decide that the agent is only one of many agents in the world. So we decide to put into action the advice we’d read somewhere. Cross the bridge, and get over yourself.

So we cross the bridge, we get over ourselves, and we send the manuscript out to a few more agents and while we’re waiting on them, we start a new book because writing is as much a part of us as breathing. And, after all, hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?

Rejection Limits & Moving On

Exactly at what point do you decide that no one wants to publish your book?

Do you have a set number of agent rejections in mind? Do you say, “I’ll stop querying when I reach the ten (or twenty or thirty) rejection level? Or do you continue to research agents and continue to send out your masterpiece until you move into the 50-rejection range? Do you take hope and guidance from the now-famous writers who suffered the arrows of rejection time and time again?

If you don’t find an agent willing to represent your book, do then send your book directly to editors at the publishing houses? Or do you shelve the book thinking that the next book you write will be THE ONE and someday when you’re a best-selling author, you’ll pull this first (or second or fifth) book off the shelf and resubmit it knowing that your publisher will now publish it because it’s yours?

Or if you don’t find an agent, do you consider publishing the book yourself? Do you tell yourself that since you have to do most of the marketing of your books yourself regardless of who publishes them, you might as well increase your income by self publishing your book? If you have the $3000 it will take to do it yourself, will you? Can you move beyond the stigma that long-ago attached itself to the self-published by telling yourself that times have changed and self-publication is no longer the refuge of the unpublishable?

Or if you don’t find an agent, will you consider publishing the book as an ebook for Amazon’s Kindle? To be sure, there’s still the marketing to be done. Have you done the math to figure out that if you price your book at $1.99 and you sell 500 copies, you’ll be $350 richer? Is it worth it? Do you tell yourself that you’ll be one of those Kindle authors who will be picked up and given a three-book deal by the likes of Simon & Schuster?

Or will you simply say, “I’ll query 20 (or 30 or 50) agents and one (or 5 or 10) publisher, then if no one wants my manuscript, I’ll learn from my mistakes, put the manuscript on the shelf, and move on to my next manuscript.” Can you do that? Or are you convinced that this manuscript that has suffered so many rejections will appeal to one of the hundreds of other agents you have on your spreadsheet and continue to query even though you long ago passed your limit of 20 agent rejections?

It’s an interesting dilemma and not one faced by many people in this world, but one that must be faced by most authors. When do YOU set aside a manuscript and move on?

Rejection is Not Fatal

There are many kinds of rejection, some more painful than others. Some say it is the measure of the person in how we respond to rejection.

As authors, most, if not all of us, must deal with rejection. Even the most successful authors have suffered the slings and arrows of being rejected by agents and/or publishers. Look at the following:

• J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter suffered 12 rejections before finding a publisher willing to take a chance on the boy wizard.
• Gertrude Stein submitted her poems to publishers for 22 years before finally having one published - talk about perseverance.
• Madeline L’Engle submitted her manuscript entitled A Wrinkle in Time 26 times before getting it published and then won the Newbery Medal for it.
• Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times before being accepted for publication.

All these authors were once aspiring authors. They all continued to submit even after being rejected time and time again. I might add that Stephen King, too, received a rejection and put the manuscript on the shelf.

Being the inveterate list maker that I am, I am keeping track of my rejections. When I first created the list, one thing stood out. One of my favorite books that I’ve written was rejected only once. I never submitted it again possibly because I love that story and those characters. Recently, I put it on my to do list - I’m going to revisit that book, do a hard-copy edit, and start resubmitting it again.

I’ve gotten over taking the rejections of my work personally. Now when I receive a rejection email, I simply add it to my spreadsheet. I look at the statistics and, if I feel myself about to spiral into the rejection black hole, I remind myself of two things. First, getting published is a business and rejections are a part of that business. Then I remind myself that Margaret Mitchell suffered through 38 rejections before getting GWTW published.

Finally, Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

Getting Inspiration

Before the sun was up this morning, I went for a walk with my dogs in an effort to avoid having to walk in the heat and humidity that would be our world by nine. For the first five minutes, we were alone. It is my favorite part of our walk. The serenity of the park, with its large trees providing shade and a canopy overhead, the brook that runs beside the sidewalk, and the green grass, makes me feel optimistic. Walking allows me to let my mind wander where it will. Some of my best inspirations have come while I’ve been strolling. This morning was no different. I’d received an overnight email from another agent rejecting my book, albeit a very nice form rejection unlike some of the others that were terse and barely civil. I’ve received enough rejections to not take it personally but not so many as to not wonder why.

As I walked in the coolness of the morning, I wondered whether it was the query letter that was responsible for the rejections or the first chapter. I really wanted it to be the letter. How could I improve the query? I knew I needed to take yet another look at my first chapter to see if I could improve on it as well.

As I rounded a bend in the sidewalk, we came face to face with a very large dog (think Great Dane large) and a puppy we’d not met before. As we often do, the two humans stopped to have a chat and talk about our dogs. The puppy was unusual - he had one blue eye and one green eye - and like many puppies wanted to eat everything in sight, in this case many many sticks and twigs. After spending ten minutes talking, we went our separate ways.

Instead of going back to thoughts of this morning’s rejection email, I wanted to pay closer attention to my surroundings. I love the part in our walk where we pass by a bank of sweet-smelling Honeysuckle. We woke a Mallard and his mate, who were sleeping near a tiny pond and not happy with our intrusion and let us know it. This looked to be the same pair who were in the park last spring and summer and never ceased to be insulted by our presence.

By the time we made our way around the park, the temperature was rising and the humidity becoming oppressive. It was time to go home. In the course of a half hour, I had seen a pair of ducks, several bunnies, a gaggle of geese flying in a V overhead, lots of squirrels, and several of the people I see every morning. It was a great walk.

It’s not yet 8:00 am and my dogs are flaked out as if their work for the day is done while my day has only just begun.

I also knew I how to beef up my query letter with a better hook and the idea for this blog. All in all a very successful walk.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

In learning about the publishing business, I’ve spent way too much time on Twitter. That being said, Twitter has a wealth of information about the business from writing query letters to expanding your list of subject matter experts on writing and getting published. With an expanding list of SMEs, however, comes a conundrum - who to listen to? For instance, one SME says that putting the title, genre, and word count at the beginning of your query letter is required. Then, you go to another SME, and this one tells you no, having that information at the top of your query letter only distracts from what is really important - your book. So who does a poor querier believe? Especially when you’re being told by so many SMEs that if an agent doesn’t like your query letter, you’re going to get a form-letter rejection.

All the SMEs seem to believe that you need to increase your online presence by twittering and blogging. The reasons given make sense. If you twitter and only have two followers, you’re essentially twittering to yourself. Back to the SMEs to learn how to increase your followers so you’re no longer twittering to yourself. Lots of advice there - play nice, respond to others’ tweets, and followers will begin arriving in droves. But wait. You’re following the SMEs. How do you respond to topics that you’re trying to learn about? A polite thanks for posting that? Or wow that was really informative. Sounds good? Agents aren’t likely to follow you because you’re not an industry insider and they’re busy doing their job. No one has heard of you. No one is following you. Do you see where this is going? The proverbial Catch-22.

The SMEs also tell you to not get discouraged, that a rejection isn’t personal, and your book just isn’t right for that particular agency. Some encourage you to send out multiple query letters at the same time for a particular book. Someone, they seem to be saying, is going to like your book some day.

Fifteen years ago, The Writer magazine was writing that authors shouldn’t get discouraged “too easily.” Their point was that the publishing world is a “cold and hard one for the aspiring author.” They tell us that not every author can be a Stephen King. They encourage authors to continue submitting because there are “countless authors who get accepted after thirty or forty rejections.” Some things never seem to change no matter how much things seem to change.