Guys, literary agents are people too!

[naomi_jay]

I know, I've met mine. We had lunch. She gave me half her burger because it was huge.

Every now and then, the internet and literary world get together and throw up some truly memorable episodes of crazy. The latest is that of the Rejection Queen, a truly determined soon-to-be-published writer, who keeps a blog tracking her rejections and her responses to them. Now, if you have a lot of time on your hands, like I did yesterday, you might want to go back through the archives and see her turn from pretty normal wannabe writer plugging along on the query-go-round (we've all been there, right? The hope, the rejection, the pain, the renewed hope, etc...) to vective-spitting crazy lady. dwg  reviews it all quite neatly.

Look, rejection sucks. Really, we all know that. Whether it's romantic, professional, personal, whatever. It sucks. It hurts. It batters our precious egos and we cry and everyone pats us on the shoulder and assures us that perseverence is the key and you're better off without him. And it's fine to stomp your feet and wail that nobody understands your deathless prose and everyone can drop dead because YOU'LL SHOW THEM ALL!!! Really, that's fine.

As long as you do it in private.

Because the Internet sees all. Deleting your ranty, screamy post about how all literary agents are moronic morons who wouldn't know good writing if it slapped them in the face will do you no good. Your rant can be revisited time and time again through the magic of Google caching. And anyway, even if you do delete it, it's too late! People saw and spread the word. They've flocked to your blog, either to mock you or offer you genuinely sound advice on how your blog was a bad idea.

If you want any success as a writer, you've got to let go of the idea that nobody but you knows how to make it. Let go of the idea that there's some big conspiracy in place that keeps unpublished writers from breaking out. Stop thinking of literary agents as people who exist soley to crush your dreams. Because that's just stupid. As dwg  says, if your chosen job is to find good writers with publishable books, you're going to be a pretty discerning reader. So if someone rejects your novel, it most likely isn't because they hate you and want to see you fail out of jellus mean-meaniness.

If you've got to vent, do it offline. I had my fair share of hissy fits when I was submitting AFTERLIFE around, but I kept them f-locked, or left them offline altogether. Because man, the world is connected! People can Google each other and find all kinds of exciting things out. And I'm pretty sure, if you're a literary agent with a prospective client, you're going to Google them. And when you see their vitriolic blog about how every literary agent is either a bitch or a pathetic hag, you're going to think twice about taking that writer on.

Probably in a few weeks, nobody will remember this, and Rejection Queen can go on submitting and being rejected. The Lanaia Lee thing died down (although I still check her website occasionally because her author bio is simply stunning). But in the mean time, here's my stance:

There's no conspiracy - agents want to find good writers. It's a mutually supportive system.

Art is subjective - people have different tastes. Not everyone is going to think your super-speshul novel is literary gold, and you have to learn to live with it.

You're not entitled to anything - writing is hard work and loads of people are doing it, just the same as you. If you want to get anywhere, drop the precious princess act.

Literary agents are people too - they share their burgers are entitled to like or dislike your writing and it doesn't make them evil, wicked mean-meanies.

"Fuck*" has a "c" in it - "fuked" is not a word.

*Sorry, Dad.

Comments

[muninnhuginn]

"Fuked" is so a word. We just haven't found a use for it yet.

And isn't Miss RQ wonderful.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Whenever I see it I think of Duke Nukem. He could be Duke Fukem from now on.

[muninnhuginn]

Ah, that's the over 18s version ;-)

[dwg.livejournal.com]

sorry to butt in, but on a related note, have you seen the trailer IGN put together about Kratos' career as a porn star post-God of War? Mounting Olympus (NSFW-ish).

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

I never get that... The only reaction I always have to rejection is polish the story, until it's even more shiny.

But hey, the internet is full of silly people, to put it lightly.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

That's the only sensible way to react! And if you can't be sensible, you should at least be anonymous!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

As it's been pointed out in FW, agents will talk to each other. If they're anything like my editing meetings back in university, we'd get together and have a great old bitch about what works, what doesn't, this story is great and I will fight for it, this one is great but I know the author and we're going to work together to get it up to snuff because his style is a little bit out there and so on and so forth.

The thing is, what went on in the editing room basically stayed in the editing room. I know I may have bitched a bit about it on my blog but I'm not going to mention specifics on THIS STORY. HOLY SHIT THIS STORY. WHAT. *SKEEVED FOREVERRRRR* I've still got doozies that I am willing to email in private, but it's staying in private/incredibly vague terms. Because even though I'm not a working professional, I at least know that to blatantly post about these things is Bad Form.

I'm willing to bet good money that there's no equivalent editor/agent blog that talks about the batshit they have to deal with on a daily basis. Or that one story they wish they could represent (as one thing I have learned is that good writing is good writing, regardless of the genre) but it's outside their area of representation. Y'know, because they're professionals and want to help people find the appropriate avenues for authors to achieve their goals. It's not exactly their fault if people aren't willing to listen to their advice/guidelines because those people think they're above it all with their masterpiece (HDU REJECT THEMMM)

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

I think the job interview analogy you made actually works quite well - if you get turned down for a job, you're not likely to write hated-filled letters to the employer, or throw shit at their window or whatever. (At least, not if you're sane).

[dwg.livejournal.com]

She's very much treating this like a job interview process, that her getting famous and being able to quit her regular job and living the life of a big name author is all dependent on this one thing. Selling one novel is no guarantee that you'll be able to sell your second, or third, or fiftieth. RQ's got a whole lotta hard lessons to learn about the industry, and making it to F_W is just one of them.

ETA: also, this just makes me want to post my first, Very Crappy Novel and spork the hell out of myself. If I can rip other people to pieces, it's only fair that I can shred my own work.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Ha! That would be loads of fun. I might dig out my own Very Crappy Novel and do the same. We could make a day of it!

[esssjay.livejournal.com]

Oh my word 0.o I've checked out the thread where they discover that RQ is being published by PA and her own blog where she denies it all. I'm somewhere inbetween shocked and amazed!

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

It's weird, isn't it? She makes a big point of blasting self-publishing and PA, but it seems very likely she's ended up with PA. Then again, she seems very naive about publishing as a whole, so who knows?

I love your icon, btw.

[esssjay.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have a bit of an icon addiction.

[etaknosnhoj.livejournal.com]

But Nomes, there IS a conspiracy. There's a whole cave full of dwarves under London and they take every brilliant first novel by an unpublished author and they STEAL THE BRILLIANT IDEA and give it to a Best Selling Novelist, which they CLONE IN TANKS, and then they FEED THE UNPUBLISHED WRITER TO BEARS.

You know it's the only reasonable explanation.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

This is utter nonsense of the highest order.

We all know it's velociraptors, not bears. They clone them from DNA extracted from the stolen imagination cells of the cloned authors.

[etaknosnhoj.livejournal.com]

Velociraptors in caves? Now you're just making stuff up.

Everyone knows they're woodland dinosaurs.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

What? You can get caves in woods!

[pubd2b.livejournal.com]

ROFL... Fuked sounds like someone realllllllly sick and vomiting... they didnt puke they fuked... hahaha!

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Lol, that works!