Jane over at
LeafStitchWord Blog has a wish list for rejections that goes like this:
- No thank you. This still feels like a draft to us.
- No thank you. This doesn’t fit with our editorial vision or sensibility.
- No thank you. Honestly, we are overloaded with stuff right now, and your essay did not grab us on the first page, so we didn’t keep reading.
- No thank you. This is potentially really interesting, but it’s too long for what it is.
- No thank you. We really prefer to publish the Under 40 and Fabulous Crowd, and this is not that.
What's on your wish list?
6 comments:
No thank you. One of our staff of unpaid creative writing majors googled you, and you aren't a creative writing professor.
No thank you. You're not someone I personally know in New York.
My first rejection on a full ms request was delitefully horrifying. It stated that my novel was emotionally radiant with good literary merit, but was too dark for the agency at hand.
I clicked my heels and sobbed at the same time. It was the big R, but at least it wasn't because my novel was sloppy or first draft like.
Sorry, we're only publishing obscure, decades-long dead authors at this time.
I love these. They're not very funny because they're absolutely true.
Why it would be nice to get honest little form rejections like this (and yes, I get it's a joke) I do sympathize with the editors sometimes. For every decent piece they reject, there are 10 more crazy bad pieces from crazy writers. Sending a "this is potentially interesting but too long for what it is" rejection may then be met with either the writer happily lopping of 500 words at random and resubmitting or an angry email ranting about how short-sighted they are and how they don't recognize good work when they see it. Blah.
Hi
I like your blog. It's reassuring but also uplifting.
Here's an award of sorts!
http://thinkoutsidethevortex.blogspot.com/2010/06/versatile-blogger-award.html
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