How the mighty have fallen

Miss Snark is retiring.

You heard right. Her Snarkiness will be no more.

One of the most frequently updated and amusing agent blogs is no more.

What brought this on? Burnout, I'd guess. For the past couple of months, very few people have asked any questions that aren't completely stupid or already been answered. She's answered them all, folks.

I think her last round on the COM is probably a big factor, as well. She took on too much. She probably also wants to continue running a successful agenting business, so to do so, she doesn't need to be spending hours a day responding to her readers.

She will be missed.



Image courtesy 101 Reasons to Stop Writing. Get one and spread the love.

An excellent week

It took some work to get over the hump, but I'm over it in a big way. Approximately 15,000 words since Monday, and that's taking a break Tuesday.

The end is a little slow, and I've had to do some serious thinking on the overall theme. Somewhere, I lost it. Nightblade is a driven character, but her eventual redemption comes literally out of the blue... a genuine deus ex machina.

I have to do some buildup to that, so that it doesn't come completely out of left field.

Current word count: 54,551. I think adding some depth to the plot and introducing one of the characters as a participant in the story sooner will help pad it to a more respectable word count.

On Rejection Letters

I've been not-writing by reading the Rejection Collection.

A bigger bunch of whiners and wannabes there never was. So many people get so many rejections, and the most anyone can say is "they obviously didn't get my magnum opus" or "stupid poopyhead" (that's a quote, not a paraphrase.

People, come on. I see folks bitching about a personalized rejection... which means the agent cared enough to actually give you some feedback. I see others bitching about receiving nothing but form rejections, and never once considering the problem just might be their writing!

My favorite is here:

http://rejectioncollection.com/rcollection/index.php3?story_id=818

The agent thought it was so awful that he/she went ahead and included a rejection for any future attempts.

THAT is dedicated agenting. If only more would do that!

I'm very amused.

What amuses me even more is the number of people who follow directions and expect a person response because they did so. "I followed their submission guidelines to perfection and all they could do was send me a short paragraph form rejection letter?"

Boo-freakin-hoo.

And the clincher? This tl;dr boatload of drivel bemoaning the state of the industry.

This person spent FOUR YEARS writing ONE novel. One. They have an english degree, and say "At 25, with only 1 book, I feel like it is impossible to be a writer."

Why aren't you writing number 2? If you've gotten standard form rejections with no explanations at all from all 28 agencies you've queried, something isn't working. Get thee to a critique group. Or better still: start something new.

And throughout this entire rant, this person doesn't consider the obvious: the whole thing sucks. If it it was just one or two things, then you'd get personal rejections. The writing is probably great on a technical level; but if it were only technical skill that got you published, it wouldn't be such a tough biz. English degrees are 100% meaningless. They qualify you to teach: no more.

And then, we come to the point: her manuscipt is 853 pages long. Good GOD. No wonder she got so many rejections. The whole damn novel is tl;dr.