Rejections

If you are an author (or a human, really) you are going to have to find a way to deal with rejection. Please don't go attacking agents, or editors.  This sort of thing rarely helps your cause. I know it's not fun, so cry, beat pillows, eat ice cream, whatever helps you through. You've got to find something that doesn't involve assaulting people.

My first real taste of rejection was the college admissions process. Until then I'd been one of the smarter kids in my grade and felt I could do stuff pretty easily. I also had big plans about The Future--all of which involved me becoming Very Important. And then colleges I applied to said to me, "Actually, you're pretty average. Sorry."

I had this fantasy that one day they would be sorry. And since I was going to be Very Important, they would invite me to speak on their campus. I would respond by sending them a copy of the rejection letter they sent me. ("Due to the the strong pool of applicants, I regret to inform you that I will not be able to speak at your Very Important Thing...")

And I used that whole "prove them wrong" thing as motivation to do well at university and later at grad school. But I don't have copies of those rejection letters anymore. I guess that's why the "use it as fuel" metaphor is often used. Fuel is good to get you places, but eventually it burns away.

Louise, Louise, Louise

Last night, our own Louise Fury won Agent of the Year from the New York City Chapter of RWA.

I hoped to have pictures but my camera-phone made everything blurry. So you will just have to imagine. (The award is a golden apple and Louise is Louise.)

Louise is great. I'm lucky to work with her. And it was a great night to celebrate her, because she just posted a "major" deal on PublishersMarketplace to top it all off.

Widgets

Playing around with Amazon widgets. These are some books that my agency has worked on recently.

Bennett's 'Gaia Wars' finds Identity Films - Entertainment News, EXCLUSIVE, Media - Variety

Bennett's 'Gaia Wars' finds Identity Films - Entertainment News, EXCLUSIVE, Media - Variety

Very excited about this! 

COFW

I mentioned before I am going to the Central Ohio Fiction Writers Conference in September. On their twitter, they announced appointments with me were available. So check out their website if you are in Ohio and want to meet me.

Write On Con

I'm going to another conference, but this one is better because it's online and that means you could attend!

Write On Con is taking place this August 14th and 15th. On August 14, I'll be taking part in a panel of industry professionals at 9pm. In con speak, I'm part of the "faculty" which I think means I get to assign homework. Exciting!

I'm also donating a query critique to their fund raising efforts, so look out for that.

Kit

Since she posted it to her blog, I might as well announce (though part of me doesn't believe anything is real until I have the signed contract in my hand) that author Kit Forbes (also known as Barbara Sheridan) is now a client of mine.

One of these days I'm going to link to all my clients on the sidebar thingy there. I just keep forgetting. And I seem to be acquiring them rather rapidly of late. Kind of like Pokemon. Gotta catch 'em all.

The windup and the pitch

On Monday, I got back from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference. It was a really good group of writers and I heard a lot of strong pitches. I also heard a lot of pitches in general. I did six 90-minute pitch sessions over two days. Each author had 3 minutes to tell me about their book. (I estimate I heard about 150 pitches, because some slots were empty. But that's still a lot.)


Some authors are just so nervous. I always feel badly, because I'm an anxious person myself so I know the feeling. But there is a lot of pressure to say exactly the right thing. There are workshops about it. Authors practice for weeks.

But the truth is that you don't have to say exactly the right thing. You just have to tell me enough to pique my interest. I've never signed a client on a pitch alone (and I can't imagine myself doing so unless the person was a celebrity and wouldn't actually write the book) because I have to see the writing. So pitching isn't the be-all and end-all, it's just the beginning of a long process.

I like getting to talk to people, and I hope there will be some good projects showing up in my inbox soon. And even if I didn't request more, I hope authors learned something from the experience.

Donald Sobol

I'm very sad to hear about the death of Donald Sobol. It is a great loss for children's literature and literature in general. I recently heard Mr. Sobol on NPR and was reminded how much I loved his Encyclopedia Brown series as a kid.

I don't remember which book it was, or which case, but I do remember once solving the case BEFORE Encyclopedia Brown. (The grass under the bike was green!) And I don't think I've ever been so proud of myself.

I learned a lot from this man. Much of it was about flag etiquette. But I also learned that I could be a teen sleuth if I wanted to be.

And that is an important message for young people, I think.

Here's a link to the radio program I heard a few months ago.

Update.

If you sent me a query, I'm on ones that were received at the beginning of June 2012. If you sent me one before that, then I didn't get it.

If you sent me a partial manuscript: I'm up to about mid-May 2012 (from the date the partial was submitted). Full manuscripts are similar but I do have some from April. Egads.

Next Thursday I will be at AgentFest, here in Manhattan.

The week after, I'm going to the PNWA Conference in Seattle, WA. Come see me!