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The Publishing World
Jul. 5th, 2006 10:16 amI was reading publishing industry blogs again this morning. This is one of those things I do to try to motivate myself to do a bit more of that "apply seat of pants to seat of chair" thing known as writing.
Anyway, whenever I read industry materials, I cringe, positively *cringe* with memories of my own stupidity.
To be fair, I have *always* wanted to be a writer (since I was about 6) and I started submitting stuff at the tender age of 11 (though I have only submitted 5 things ever, which averages out to what, a little less than one every two years?).
Within this brief catalog, I can list so many embarassing gaffes.
1) My dad was friends with a well-known playwright and introduced us when I was 10. I sent her a story I was working on, and did one of the classics - warned her not to "steal my idea"! She wrote me back a SCATHING letter. Deserved, I imagine, though my 10 year old self was just crushed.
Apparently this is a big newbie writing fear that has NO basis in fact, but to be fair to myself, I was 10.
2) I submitted a poem to the New Yorker at 11. Umm, hello, know your market? Wayyyyyy published poets do not publish in the New Yorker. It's a top top tier poetry market. But again, I do give myself a bit of an out for being 11.
3) I submitted a few poems to a nice online journal that published them when I was in my late teens. Cool! But I never cashed the check because I was so excited to have a check from a real journal. Uncool of me! Also, a year later another online journal approached me about reprinting, and I said sure. I've never been sure if that was a faux pas or not.
4) I submitted a cringingly amateurish short story to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (again, a top tier market), and got a form letter back. Sent a less cringingly amateurish story about 5 years later and got a non-form letter back, encouraging me to submit piece to other markets. Didn't do so. D'oh! I should totally have done so.
5) Finished a first novel that featured every painful first-novel-trope possible. It was autobiographical. The story arc was weak. The writing was overwrought. I would never have paid money to read this novel, and it bore no resemblance to any work by any author that I have ever truly enjoyed. Chalk it up to therapy. At least I never submitted it anywhere, though I did print and bind 7 copies and inflict it on my friends and family.
This catalog of shame was brought to you by my perusal of agent and editor webpages. I don't feel quite as bad when I remember that the sort of information found on those pages was probably not nearly as widely available in 1990-1999, when most of these egregious errors occurred. To be fair, I did try to educate myself about the writing world (read and purchased Writers' Market books, got books on the trade out of the library, read publishing magazines sometimes) but it's just hard to build up a coherent picture of any aspect of the adult world when you're an inexperienced kid.
Anyway, whenever I read industry materials, I cringe, positively *cringe* with memories of my own stupidity.
To be fair, I have *always* wanted to be a writer (since I was about 6) and I started submitting stuff at the tender age of 11 (though I have only submitted 5 things ever, which averages out to what, a little less than one every two years?).
Within this brief catalog, I can list so many embarassing gaffes.
1) My dad was friends with a well-known playwright and introduced us when I was 10. I sent her a story I was working on, and did one of the classics - warned her not to "steal my idea"! She wrote me back a SCATHING letter. Deserved, I imagine, though my 10 year old self was just crushed.
Apparently this is a big newbie writing fear that has NO basis in fact, but to be fair to myself, I was 10.
2) I submitted a poem to the New Yorker at 11. Umm, hello, know your market? Wayyyyyy published poets do not publish in the New Yorker. It's a top top tier poetry market. But again, I do give myself a bit of an out for being 11.
3) I submitted a few poems to a nice online journal that published them when I was in my late teens. Cool! But I never cashed the check because I was so excited to have a check from a real journal. Uncool of me! Also, a year later another online journal approached me about reprinting, and I said sure. I've never been sure if that was a faux pas or not.
4) I submitted a cringingly amateurish short story to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (again, a top tier market), and got a form letter back. Sent a less cringingly amateurish story about 5 years later and got a non-form letter back, encouraging me to submit piece to other markets. Didn't do so. D'oh! I should totally have done so.
5) Finished a first novel that featured every painful first-novel-trope possible. It was autobiographical. The story arc was weak. The writing was overwrought. I would never have paid money to read this novel, and it bore no resemblance to any work by any author that I have ever truly enjoyed. Chalk it up to therapy. At least I never submitted it anywhere, though I did print and bind 7 copies and inflict it on my friends and family.
This catalog of shame was brought to you by my perusal of agent and editor webpages. I don't feel quite as bad when I remember that the sort of information found on those pages was probably not nearly as widely available in 1990-1999, when most of these egregious errors occurred. To be fair, I did try to educate myself about the writing world (read and purchased Writers' Market books, got books on the trade out of the library, read publishing magazines sometimes) but it's just hard to build up a coherent picture of any aspect of the adult world when you're an inexperienced kid.
