The editor at my publishing house rejected my sequel to BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA; she said it lacked tension and not enough was at stake. When one works on a manuscript for two years, and tinkers through several drafts, this news can be devastating, and it calls for a night of wine and whine. Yet my editor was absolutely right. The tension and high stakes for the story were in there, but they were buried under 20,000 words worth of back-story.

I reread my book as an editor might, and asked Elizabeth, and she and I concurred on where I should start the story. As Les Edgerton says in Hooked The story begins at the inciting incident. It just took me 20,000 to show the reader where the good stuff was going to happen.

Just because I’ve written a semi truck’s worth of stuff doesn't mean I will remember my bad writing habits. Writing is like dating: you date the same damaged person over and over and try to save them, until one day, you finally acknowledge half of the problem is you. I get in my own way as a writer by clinging to my measly back-story as if the story will rush over a waterfall without it.

Admittedly, this is the highest number I’ve words I’ve incised from a single manuscript. Did the story fall apart? No. In fact, the liposuction helped give it a smoother shape. I’ve since added in 24,000 additional words, but these words are muscles, not fat. Around 8,000 of those words are reworked as flashback scenes from the 20,000 that fell to the cutting room floor, but most of the new material drives the reader deeper into Michael’s struggle. In THE LANGUAGE OF THE SON the stakes are clearer and the conflict apparent right away. It's a much better book.

So my next step is back to the soul crushing stage of of querying agents, accumulating rejections, and meanwhile writing book three of placing Michael in yet more peril.

Spoiler alert: Michael will be in this city:

Bad Query Contests Are Good for the Writer's Soul

Recently I participated in a Write a Bad Query Contest. http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/author/rachelkent/ Alas, I didn't win, but It was a pleasure to purposely write a bad query. It wasn't difficult; all I had to do was channel my litany of bad queries and poke fun at my own mistakes, or rather misteaks. The contest was a hoot, and I enjoyed reading the variety of submissions and comments. They all poked fun at the shared experience of crafting the dreaded yet necessary query letter.

.

I despise the query process. It forces me to dress up and behave, but the fabric itches, the pantyhose bind my fat, and these shoes are killing me. I’m not good at faking it. When I tried acting in High School, the audience erupted in laughter with each of my lines. It wasn’t a comedy; I had portrayed Joan of Arc’s mother in The Lark. So I wonder if each time I submit a query with a sample, the agents and office staff roar with laughter.  If  they save the best of the worst to read aloud at the annual holiday party, I wonder if some of mine are in that batch.

Here is what I wish I could send:

:

Dear Agent. 
Here is my book. Hope you like it. Call me.

Unfortunately, the work cannot speak for itself..We have to sell the agent on the idea of even reading the manuscript. .

Sigh.

About a year ago I hired a consultant to help me with the whole wretched query process. http://literary-agents.com/. Part of the process forced me to analyze my writing history, the successes as well as the failures. Mark helped me recognize my weaknesses, which are many. (He has yet to help me cure them.) Even though I still languish in the dark, scum ridden pool of underrepresented authors, with Mark’s help, my rejections are now gold standard .http://laura-moe.blogspot.com/2012/09/mastering-levels-of-rejection.html

.

Currently I am reading The Fire in Fiction: passion, purpose, and techniques to make your novel great by agent Donald Maass. I am hoping to gain insights into what agents look for in a manuscript. Maass presents several examples of what he deems great openings, and examples of passionate writing  While I do not find every example engaging as Maass, I agree with his statement, "passionate writing makes every word a shaft of light, every sentence a crack of thunder, every scene a tectonic shift." (I plan to print that up and tape it above my work area on my desk.) So far I have only read the first two chapters, but Maass has helped me rethink some thin gs about one of the novels I have been shopping. While I have a passion for the story and the two main characters  my secondary characters are beige. Also, my story starts in the wrong place. So in effect, every agent who has rejected me has done me a favor; my novel needs surgery. (Yes, I know it's not about me, it's about the story, yet it still stings. I care about my characters and it's a little like not everyone adoring your children.)

I’m not a gamer, but it seems like like  D& D or WOW, persistence is the key, and if I don’t give up on this writing gig, the keys to the kingdom are within my reach, even though by the time I make it to gate I will be bloodied, bruised, battered, and hairless, and I will need to hire someone else to pose for my author picture so I don't scare off readers. But it will be so worth it.

Right?
Happy writing (and querying.)

.

Rejection is a Gift

It hurts when you open that e-mail or envelope and read, "Sorry...we don't have a place for your work."

Some rejections can be downright rude, like the one I got from an unnamed editor who returned my query letter with "NOT THIS ONE!" scrawled across the page. Really? Was that necessary? Did he not consider that I was going to doubt my ability as a writer even with a gentle, "No thank you?"

There are contemptable editors out there. (Not many, thank goodness.)Maybe this guy had just broken up with his wife, or his dog died. Perhaps he had a hernia, or a sunburn. Whatever his problem, I crossed out his publication in my Writer's Market with a giant X in Sharpie Marker. Two can play at this game, a##hole! And yes, I did feel better aftwrads.

I have framed my best rejection letter. The handwritten note reads, "Too bad we don't have enough space for all that we love. Keep trying.B." Isn't that wonderful? It was written by the late Betty Shipley, 1996-1998 Oklahoma Poet Laureate. I never met her, but when I thanked Ms. Shipley for the rejection, she sent me an autograghed copy of her chapbook "Somebody Say Amen." When I learned she died about a year later, I cried as if mourning a relative.

I used to keep rejection letters, back when they were snail mail letters. I may still have that snarky one. The letters remind me the distance I have travelled from no to yes, and I get far more acceptances now. You just have to keep writing and sending out work.

Rejection is part of writing.
One poet I know immediatly mails her poems to someone else as soon she opens her rejection notice. "If three editors say no,I reevaluate them," she told me.

It takes elephant hide and steely nerve to be a writer. You are not a real writer until you have been rejected, so get over it, send the work somewhere else, and keep writing.

Embrace the Rejection.