Canada Goose online Literary agents and coping with rejection Canada Goose online
Thekindestrejection letter I ever got was from a literary agent in the US. He gave me a few pretty solid reasons why he thought the MS wasn going to suit his lists and why he had https://www.nationaalzweminstituuteindhoven.nl doubts on its saleability. Then he concluded with go and prove me wrong. kind how un agent like. It was many years ago canada goose shop review and still sticks in my mind as the latest, po faced canada goose uk kensington parka rejections come slithering in. Not that they slither onto doormats anymore, of course.
canada goose uk outlet If nothing else the latest round of rejections had me reflecting on coping mechanisms and what attitudes my thicker skinned, older self had developed that were unavailable during those early years. canada goose uk outlet
It not as painful, but it still not pleasant. These plans involve pitching ideas before committing, repitching an idea to suit a market, testing the market for new ideas, reusing project material for the next pitch and then pitching a lot.
It a bit different for the hobbyist canada goose uk reviews who looking for a step towards publication. Especially for a novelist, for whom the markets are rarely a set of professionally orientated pitch and sell cycles. More common for the amateur is to spend years of dedication on a project that has personal meaning and commitment. The desire to publish is more to do with affirmation of deep emotional factors. It craves a reward that is very canada goose uk telephone number different from the professional pitch monkey rolling band wagon. For those of a certain mentalityit more like someone has scorned your new born child, has made an insouciant and abiding decision that the babe needs to die to save the world from canada goose protest uk its pernicious lack of promise. Yes there a strong tendency to make metaphors of parental loss. all stillborn books the stillest said Mr Swinburne of his first book and he was right, a massive, massive flop, now unread and largely unreadable and worth a few thousand if you ever find a copy.
It especially hurts your pride of course, because the years of writing have brought with them a relationship with the work canada goose outlet store montreal that is a deep form of love. It also tears away your dreams of what the future might hold. It wretched if you on your second or third effort and have improved hugely as to the craft. You think you ticked all the boxes this time, fine tuned like crazy, plotted to perfection and market researched your characters likeabilty generally upped your game to make your offerings better than lots that are already roosting in the bookshops. You been nurturinga fledgling hope despite your fear of its growth. You hardly heard of any of them. Hardly any of them are full time. Many are stressing over where their difficult second book is going to come from. Many of them are hawking their own books round provincial shops. We also know just how many books are out there count them at Waterstones and the city library. So many books. An ocean of independently sprinkled drops. Surely they can all be so skillfully crafted and divinely inspired that they cannot be replicated by mortals. So maybe the success of publication is not about gift or skill or divine inspiration. And when you send to an agent or publisher, as satisfying canada goose outlet store calgary as the rite of passage will no doubt be, it certainly not a golden ticket out of a hum drum existence as a hobbyist. Despite the known ocean of books, canada goose uk customer service when we get to add our droplet it be because we were better rather than just luckier than the rest. Is this because we have a strangely awed impression of what a literary agent is or does? Or is it something about the hallowed nature of the book itself? Somehow a low selling book that is stocked canada goose outlet at Smiths and can be signed on the flyleaf seems, for many, preferable to a better selling, self published e tome. Like a toddler pleadingfor parental praise, we look to agents, publishers and strangers who like books in order to get their blessing and feel approved. In this way it most unlike gardening, cooking, DIY and a number of other creative hobbies we could be doing instead.
Coping with rejection
canada goose coats It may be thatliteratureneeds agents the way pocket watches need Salvador Dali. That stayed with me. Well, if it is grieving, then according to the Kubler Rossmodel you get fivestages to go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression before finally reaching acceptance. Accept what though? Accept that it rubbish and don bother? Accept the monstrous difficulty of the task and keep going? Maybe accept that it really nota loss at all. canada goose coats
canada goose clearance Let run with this one. What have you lost: a magic carpet to sudden success a canada goose outlet self pride you always struggled to muster five years of your life and sanity your only child? Er no, not really. Maybe it not loss at all. Taking something from the professionals, perhaps it a gain. A gain in experience, a pleasant well, maybe at the end of the more important journey of the artistic, creative practitioner. canada goose clearance
However much of a knock back it feels not to have got your literary dream this day in this way, it was really only a passing attempt in a task that has so much more to it. This isn a resolution to a complex tale in which Ifailed to triumph. It just a smile to a stranger in the street who may not have smiled back, but so what, I walking onward.
There are a stack of coping mechanisms all of them have been useful to someone. There the sour grapes about the worthlessness of agents. There the claims of misunderstanding they didn get it, they didn even read it, world was never meant for one as beautiful as you and so on. If you still young enough to do it you can always stick up and stare at the old Samuel Beckett favourite from Worstward Ho (1982) of old. Nothingelse ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Failagain. Fail better. (Although some Godot fans might prefer hang ourselves immediately. There the beefier end of coping if you inspired by Beatrice Dalle in 372 le matin (Betty Blue) stick a pencil intothe offending agent headthrough the eyeball.
We can be glibber than that, surely. We can be bolder. We can be more realistic.
To share my own coping mechanism here, I made two canada goose black friday sale uk lists. One is the way agents can appear when you investing emotionally and you daring to hope. One is a bit more sensible to the realities.
Is this list making practice part of the grieving process is it anger, or bargaining? Or is it perhaps perhaps just acceptance of a landscape that is rich in unpredictability, ignorance and unreplicable lucky breaks:
Ways to see literary agents
1 the agent is an omnipotent god
uk canada goose outlet I believe that an agent aim is a concrete judgement of the literary quality of my work uk canada goose outlet
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Canada Goose Jackets I believe that an agent is a gifted and brilliant literary critic of impeccabletaste Canada Goose Jackets
I believe that an agent has read and re read my work, got to grips with its nuances and subtleties and has now realisedthe text was worthless
canada goose black friday sale I believe that agents are world leading business entrepreneurs whose every decision is strategically miraculous canada goose black friday sale
I believe that agents have scientifically ascertainedwhich books succeed and can replicate a best selling formula with whatever works they choose
cheap canada goose uk I believe that an agent sneered and joked with colleagues at the temerity of me sending to their sanctified agency cheap canada goose uk
canada goose I believe that this agent represents the likely point of view of all agents, who all share a taste and judgement canada goose.