Lucky You!

In his recent blog Nathan Bransford -- Agent for Curtis Brown -- spoke about a concept that's very near and dear to my heart, the dreaded "speed rejection."

In it, Mr. Bransford discussed the reasons why agents will often send a rejection to a query letter in (say) five minutes. As a person who has experienced this phenomena more than once, I have to say I've thought long and hard about it. Prior to reading Nathan's blog, I must say I pictured some stuffy suit-clad business type, with his salt-and-peppered widow's peak and leathery skin. I envisioned this imaginary villain laughing hysterically as he read each query with disdain, responding to each with a typical one liner "not for me, thanks!" before going on to the next poor, innocent, aspiring writer.

Having read his blog, I came to understand that he's a busy man, plain and simple. He doesn't want to disrespect anyone, but he also doesn't want to blow smoke up your butt or waste your time. ("your", of course, referring to my fellow aspiring writer.)

Still, I must admit I'm an enigma. I'm an anomoly in the writing world. I'm different. I'm Random Man, but I'm also marching to the beat of my own drummer. Keeping that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I decided to pose a question to Mr. Nathan Bransford. As I'm known for my offbeat sense of humor, I'm quite sure he didn't know what to make of my question, but I have to recognize the candor and professionalism with which he answered the question that I seriously wanted answered.

Quite simply, I asked him had he ever speed rejected a query only to re-think his decision later on. Perhaps he would be driving home at the end of a long day and thought "Well, I don't know. That does sound appealing." or whatever.

In short, he wrote that he'd never experienced that. He doesn't second guess himself. He goes with his gut, which is the way he has learned to do his job. His first instincts, like most agents, are always right.. (I'm sure the 8 publishers that rejected Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone aren't second guessing themselves either. Kicking themselves, maybe; But hardly second guessing themselves. There's a confidence on that side of this business that forbids such a sin.)
Let me pause for a moment to discuss the rejection of some authors you may or may not know.

John Grisham - 28 publishers rejected "A Time to Kill"
Golding - 21 publishers rejected "Lord of the Flies"
Pearl Buck - 14 publishers rejected "The Good Earth"
George B. Shaw - first 5 novels rejected
Saroyan - first 100 articles rejected
Mary Higgins Clark - first short story rejected 40 times
Louis L'Amour - 350 rejections

(Source: http://writingcorner.com/motivation/mot-funinspire.htm)

Meg Cabot said that her Princess Diaries got rejected seventeen times before it was finally bought.
Marcel Proust decided to self-publish after being rejected three times.
Stephen King got the following rejection for his bestselling novel, Carrie: "We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell."
Shockingly, The Diary Of Anne Frank received the following rejection comment: "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity' level."
(Source: http://www.debbieohi.com/personal/rejections.html)

Needless to say, Editors and Agents are wrong. I'm going to make a dangerous assertion that they are probably wrong more than they are right. Does that make them dummies? Of course not. It only takes one good sell for them to be set for the year. A good analogy here would be baseball. The greatest baseball player has a batting average under .400. This means he misses the ball nearly 7 out of every 10 times he gets up to bat. But it only takes one home run to spell the difference in the game. So, no, agents and editors are not stupid, despite what some aspiring writers would like to think. That little "masterpiece" you have sitting on your computer desk might be the next Harry Potter, but what the agent is saying is that the piece isn't right for him. End of story.

So what's an impatient, anxious, hopeful aspiring writer to do amid all that rejection? Well, the first response is "Gut up or Give up!" A writer faced with rejection must decide if he's willing to fight through the rejection and carry on. Give up completely or keep submitting to other agents and editors? Nathan Bransford can't answer that question for an aspiring writer. Curtis Brown (God rest his soul) can't answer that question for an aspiring writer. That must come from your heart. Do you wake up, go through your day, and go to bed at night with writing as your singular focus? If so, you're a writer. If you give up, you're a has been before you are an "ever was."

The Agent Theory

Here's where we depart from what's been discussed and get to the reason why this article was written to begin with. Agents and editors are lucky. They have the luxury of going with their guts. Going with their first instincts serves them well -- well enough they don't starve at least.
Writers don't have this luxury. Our gut is to write. Agents collect a paycheck everyday. They sit in an office, read queries, submissions and e-mails from industry insiders. They take phone calls, make phone calls, do "lunch" and negotiate movie deals or what have you. They work hard, no doubt. But at the end of the day, they have a guaranteed income. They can afford to go with their gut. They get paid regardless. Writers must never go with their gut. To do so is death to a writer's career. To go with one's "first instinct" is to eliminate the entire revision process. To simply pen a basic query and put no thought into it, no heart. Imagine if we were to read the first draft of Stephen King's "The Stand." It was probably a 300 page semi-organized story in usual need of clean up, structure and tone. Seven drafts later, (or 100 drafts... who knows?) we are graced with what is hailed as one of his best pieces ever! His first instincts didn't work, period. The way he told the story was a framework, but he had to go back, cogitate, contemplate, add, take away, revise, revise, revise...

Imagine if I sat at my computer pounding out a story's first draft and sent that to an editor or agent. I'd be the laughing stock of the publishing world! (Me and 3,000 other writers who actually DO this each day!) I don't do this, however. I sit. I take weeks, months, even years crafting my stories, amid family crises, personal health issues and major world events. I pour my heart and soul onto the 85,000 word manuscript. I interrupt family time, battle through sicknesses, cancel vacations and lose endless sleep as I work to make this story the best that it can be. I obsess over the query. I make as many drafts of my query letter as I do my novel, it seems. I send both letter and manuscript to friend and fellow writer alike, asking for assistance with making it as good as it can be.

And then I am rejected in five minutes by a very hard working, congenial, gut-led experienced agent, batting about .300 in the agenting world. And apparently I'm supposed to see the scales as balanced. It's not bitterness I express when I say that I don't see it thus. It's logic, I suppose. Logic of a person led not by his gut, but by something about six inches higher -- my heart.
And it leaves me wondering, how is a heart-led person supposed to convince a gut-led person that passion and teamwork leads to lasting success. We're speaking different languages. How am I to convince a person whose heart is out of the equation that my passion, devotion, desire and ability are several of the key elements it takes for a literary partnership to thrive? All I have is my passion and ability. I don't have a crystal ball into the future or a bankroll to guaranty his investment in me.

Agents and editors think with their guts. Writers think with their hearts. And it's only when the two find a way to communicate between the two that a connection is made. Those are great moments. It's that moment when writing does something truly magical. For it is in that moment -- the moment when guts and hearts are communicating in harmony -- that writing touches the deepest parts of a unified soul.

(Wow... that's cool. I need to write that down!)

Till next time, this article is brought to you by the aspiring letters W, E and H and by their partner in crime, number 2