tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post3371079672913644834..comments2024-03-26T19:49:12.341-04:00Comments on Workshop Heretic: Agent disappointmentJacob Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17591038654403487222noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post-46954428223679763012017-07-01T06:47:57.206-04:002017-07-01T06:47:57.206-04:00If some guy says, "I don't really know wh...If some guy says, "I don't really know what the point of this story is," it may not be advice, but it's potentially a very concrete bit of feedback. I mean, if my advisor had said that about one of my chapters, I would have had to go back with that comment alone and figure out a way to make my point clearer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post-52238271782330476202017-07-01T06:26:24.009-04:002017-07-01T06:26:24.009-04:00This is why I go crazy with writing, and also why ...This is why I go crazy with writing, and also why I'm kind of critical of the workshop format. How do I know someone is giving me good advice? And this feedback isn't really advice, it's just a quick explanation of why he doesn't want to represent it. Doesn't really offer any ideas for what to change. So even if he has a point, I wouldn't know what to do with it. The only thing I know for sure is that I'm going to keep trying with other agents. Jacob Weberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17591038654403487222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post-13888201600324071532017-06-30T18:28:04.447-04:002017-06-30T18:28:04.447-04:00Tell him it's about nothing. Well, maybe that...Tell him it's about nothing. Well, maybe that works better on TV.<br /><br />What I do wonder is whether or not you can do anything with his comments about "takeaway." Was there insufficient foregrounding for him to know what it was really going to be about? And, of course, maybe he's just not your audience. But what if he has a point? What if some restructuring or some further work on that very point, the what's it about part, would make the difference?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post-50968827170524928212017-06-29T14:22:08.480-04:002017-06-29T14:22:08.480-04:00I don't know where most people get it, but I g...I don't know where most people get it, but I got it from - I'm almost afraid to tell you this - a biography of Sylvia Plath. Her high school English teacher required everyone to turn in 50 rejection letters by the end of the year. The idea was not to get to YES but to learn how to get better at letting them bounce off. I would guess it's that skill, not writing skill, that determines who gets published and who doesn't, more now than ever. To be honest, I don't even know if 50 was the number; I have the book around here somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find the story.<br /><br />I really wish I could say something that would help, but I don't think such a thing exists. So we send platitudes and anecdotes and hope it's better than saying nothing. Karen Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18148246613451246487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post-20303047925441886452017-06-29T04:58:06.400-04:002017-06-29T04:58:06.400-04:00Thanks, Karen. Yes, those are all the right things...Thanks, Karen. Yes, those are all the right things to say, and even if they bounce off of me right now, I still thank you for saying them. <br /><br />I've heard that number of 50 before as a magic number for agent rejections. What happens when you get to that number? You stop and go study HVAC repair? Because it's totally possible I might get to that number. I don't know where I am right now, but I think it's around twelve. Almost nobody has even taken the time to say no. Jacob Weberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17591038654403487222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269645828546245860.post-1219420916969123502017-06-28T22:06:10.673-04:002017-06-28T22:06:10.673-04:00I can't really offer anything that won't s...I can't really offer anything that won't sound ridiculous, or that you haven't heard before from far better sources than me. You've probably given the speeches to someone else in fact: the lists of novels now firmly ensconced in the Western Canon that were rejected many times around, the idiosyncracies of taste inherent in every agent/editor/reader, the painful truth that the only thing that really hurts more than rejection is looking back five/ten/twenty years from now and wondering what if you'd just kept trying - and then there's your novel, the one you were put here to share with the world. Yeah, you know all this stuff. <br /><br />Are you familiar with the "What color is your parachute" books? They were very popular back in the 70s. The one truly meaningful thing I got out of them was the path to YES goes through a few hundred NOs, so your job isn't to get the job offer (or book contract) but to brush the others out of the way, and the only way to do that is to let them say NO to you. <br /><br />Take a couple of days. Forget what's good and what isn't -- no agent is judging good, they're judging what they want to represent. Remember the stuff like how clear your talent is, how well your humor worked. Then start sending out queries again, with the goal of collecting 50 rejections. Or just send out a couple, and then a couple more. I don't know, whatever works for you. And if you still want to quit, then you can quit. <br /><br />See, nothing you haven't heard before. But it sounds like you needed to hear it, even if right now it all sounds like total crap. Karen Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18148246613451246487noreply@blogger.com