Novelist Jay Asher (whose suspense novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, is available from Razorbill/Penguin) posted the above rejection on his blog from Houghton Mifflin editor Ann Rider. (Her note reads: "I would like to spend a little more time with it if you don't mind. Sorry for the delay.")
Writes Asher: "I ended up revising The Chalkboard Drawings three times for that editor. In time, she rejected it. But with each round of revisions, the manuscript got better and I became a better writer. So I assumed, if not that particular manuscript, something else would get picked up in no time at all!" (It did.....7 years later. Ah, the timing of a literary career; how out of our hands it is. I wonder how this guy stays so upbeat.)
2 comments:
Haha -- reminds me of an experience I had with an agent. She kept making me rewrite the novel before she sent it out. Draft after draft after draft... always saying, "I made my client Famous Guy rewrite his novel 15 times! And HE got 6 figures!"
Eventually she "misplaced" my mss and I decided to move on. Though, admittedly, with a much better novel. Which helped me find a much better agent.
I wonder if Ascher step up the whole "Yes" or "No"--plus "Notes-- check box, because I think it's ingenious.
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