STFU About Anyone "Taking a Chance" On You

It's the newly signed/published author refrain. They say it in interviews, guest posts, book dedications and acknowledgments.

"Thank you [agent/editor/publisher] for taking a chance on me/the book."

It's a sweet sentiment, born of gratitude. It's recognizing that there are thousands and thousands of people who are striving for the same goal that you've now achieved, people you feel no different from. Whether your little book is plucked out of slush or whatever happened, you feel special--the wallflower someone recognized was pretty and invited to dance.

It's a romantic view of publishing. And a fucking stupid one, so stop it.

Gratitude is a good thing (never, ever lose sight of it). Yes, be thankful for the excellent people you work with. Be thankful for their guidance and advice, the experience they share with you.

But any chance taken on your work is a calculated financial decision.

Publishers/agents/etc aren't doing you a "favour" when they sign your book or you as an author: they are making a business decision regarding something they think they can make money on. They are engaging in a partnership with another business--YOU. They are not the handsome prince saving you from a life of cleaning your evil stepmother's house in rags and singing to mice.

They took on your book, invested money in it, because they thought they could sell it to lots of people and make both of you money.

Yes, they love your book. Yes, they take on very few books. Yes, you've accomplished something great--you wrote well and you wrote something people might want to read. Yay you!

But this starry-eyed view of publishing/publishers/etc and advancement of the publishers-are-charity narrative doesn't help you. Instead, it makes it that much easier to be screwed over when you start viewing the weight of power as entirely on their side and none on yours.

You're a business. You're supplying something to a publisher--books--that they then supply to readers. Without your content, they can't make money. Sure, by "your", I mean writers in general--not YOU-you. There are always more books, more authors, etc. But you have far, far more value and power than you give yourself credit for.

I worked in acquisitions. And yes, out of 1200 submissions I'd only take a couple. A couple that I thought would sell. Books I loved that I thought other people would love too--enough people to justify the money spent publishing them. I wasn't doing writers any favours by accepting their work for publication. Doing favours would be a fast track to losing my job, which relied on picking profitable projects that I had to justify to my boss spending any money on. There's a gamble there, yes, as not every book will be profitable, even if it seems like a sure thing (and the more sure-things I did go with, the more room I had to gamble with other tougher sells). But I was making fairly educated guesses based on market trends, existing book sales, and my experience as an editor--I wasn't randomly plucking books out of a hat.

I was grateful to the writers who were submitting their work to me. Every time I got a fantastic, well-done book in slush, I thanked the publishing gods above and crossed my fingers they'd accept the contract and I'd have the opportunity to work with them. Hell, now I work almost exclusively with self-published authors now as a freelancer and I am STILL so damn grateful to get a well-done book to edit or have the opportunity to create a cover for a great novel.

You know who else took a chance on your book? You did.

You took a chance by writing it. You took a chance by submitting it for consideration and doing all the work that entailed. There are plenty more guaranteed profitable things you could be doing with your time. You have tons of ideas and characters speaking to you, you have to decide what to invest your time and energy in, and you took a chance on the one that you ended up writing. Do not give anyone more credit than you've given yourself when it comes to these "chances" that have been taken.

You have power as a writer. You have options. You don't have to accept a contract. You can request changes to the contract terms. Depending on the size of the publisher, you can speak up about cover art. You can question what your publisher is doing to market a book. You can remind them you are partners in this publishing endeavor who both want the book to succeed. Now, I suggest doing so with patience and friendliness, of course, remembering that people in publishing are hella-busy and spread thin. They're also people, not a giant faceless thing, but actual people who are worth being decent to.

But any publisher, particularly among small ones, who act like you should be grateful for the sheer fact that they offered to publish your book--who neglect to answer your business questions, or who respond to them with a "my way or the highway" attitude instead with reasoned explanations--is one to be cautious of. Yes, they provide a valuable service in publishing your book and getting it into the hands of readers...

So do you, however. You provide the book. You wrote something they thought they could sell.

And keeping that in the forefront of your mind--that you are a business, you have power, and publishing is about partnerships--is a less romantic view of things but ultimately a healthier one that will serve you better as your career develops.

Know WTF You're Talking About

This post is going to be a little more anecdotal than usual, and also ranty, but bear with me.

A little while ago I read a book and found one of the non-protagonist main characters was said to have bipolar disorder. I started cringing but tried to keep an open mind.

I basically didn't stop cringing.

It was one of the more offensive portrayals of mental illness I've read in recent memory, perhaps because it seemed the author tried to humanize this character. The trouble was that she was clingy, volatile, irrational, conniving, paranoid, and downright abusive to the one person who was supposed to be her friend (which other characters pointed out). That would be fine--lots of people are like that, including bipolar people--if the explanation given for her behavior didn't boil down to, "she's off her meds."

Hey, sure, when I'm having an episode (which, contrary to fictional depictions of the disorder, are just that: EPISODES--they occur between periods of fairly stable moods), I can be irrational and volatile and paranoid. But the core of who I am--loyal, compassionate, smart, creative--is still there as well. I don't suddenly start drowning kittens when I'm manic or depressed.

ALL of the horrible abusive traits this character had--the reader was told repeatedly in the text--were symptoms of her bipolar disorder when she was off her magical meds. Bipolar disorder figuratively turned her into a monster who was possibly capable of murder.

I am willing to bet money that the author looked up bipolar disorder on Wikipedia, read a few possible characteristics, and left it at that. And if I can get pedantic for a moment, one of the reasons I believe this is because the character was supposedly on unspecified "antidepressants", which five minutes of reading or any doctor will tell you is a risky proposition (had the author said "mood stabilizers", I would've given her the benefit of the doubt). Further, nothing about the character suggested she was depressed or manic; while she was "off her meds", if anything she came across as being in a constant mixed episode. Probably because the plot required it, not because the writer knew what a mixed episode even is. The writer could have, in fact, simply passed off *all* this character's personality flaws as "because she's on her period" and it would've been just as believable.

Julie, in her last post, absolutely has an excellent point about not getting caught up in the details; my caveat would be that you absolutely have to know in detail what you're talking about when you are portraying people who could be damaged by your depictions of them.

Don't take on mental illness if your only exposure to it is the bad guy of the week on Criminal Minds or Wikipedia. Spend some time reading from the perspective of those you're writing about, even if they're secondary characters. Diversity is important, but so is NOT contributing to stigma.

As writers, we often say the story is most important and as long as that gets across, it's okay to fudge certain things. But "it's just a story" is not a defense when you're contributing to the overall narrative that makes life more difficult for marginalized groups. Daily, people like me have to push back against the idea that our mood disorders makes us dangerous, and that the only way to function and not be violent is to medicate (and that pills are magical). Mine is an illness with an 85% survival rate, in part because it's so isolating and stigmatized, which makes it extremely difficult to reach out for help. Fiction that contributes to stigma and inaccuracies stacks more weight on everyone's shoulders, and it makes for lazy fucking storytelling.

The "story" does not exist in a vacuum; it exists in a world where all things are not equal.

It's your responsibility to educate yourself about people in the world around you and to question your own depictions of them. It's on you, the writer, to get shit as accurate as possible and make an ATTEMPT to know what the fuck you're talking about.

And editors? Beta readers? Same thing to you. Because I've no doubt half a dozen people saw this book (and books like it) before it was published and not a single person called out an offensive depiction of mental illness. Whether it's a plot hole or inaccurate medical information, you should be asking the writer to know what the hell he or she is talking about as well.

How Skyla Got Her Groove Back

Remember this post? Remember how utterly miserable I've been for well over a year, writing but hating it, wanting nothing more than to close up shop and sell artisan hummus instead?

Well.

Last month, I finished a really rough draft of a book I'd started last year, and I'm now 53K words into the next book. I should finish it within the next few weeks. And I am enjoying every goddamn second of it, even when I think it's terrible, or incoherent, or reads like a video game on paper. I wrote 400K last year, but this...this is different.

I wake up in the morning...thinking about The Story.

I go through my day itching, using all of my concentration to work on paying gigs...while thinking about The Story.

My gaze trails to the side mid-sentence when I'm talking, brain tuning everything out...because I'm thinking about The Story.

When I finally, finally get to write, I'm practically jumping out of my skin and stay up far past my bedtime, getting in up to 9K some days...playing with The Story.

And I drift off to sleep, playing upcoming scenes in my head. I dream...dream of The Story.

It's obsessive and probably not healthy, and my apartment is a mess, and I've eaten so many nachos I probably smell like jalapenos...but by god it is GLORIOUS.

How did it happen, when I didn't think I'd ever be at this place again? Because, really, last year I thought this was it for me as a writer. I was done. I panicked at the thought of trying to find something else to do with my time, some other career. I was miserable.

If you find yourself in this place, where your words are broken and you're burnt out and unhappy...these are the steps that worked for me.

First, a caveat: I'm talking to the workaholics and career writers in the crowd. If you're a dabbler looking for someone to reassure you Writer's Block Is A Real Thing, you won't find it here. STFU and go sit in the corner, I don't have time for you.

Second: major credit goes to Lilith Saintcrow, for reassuring me I was going through a normal thing and giving me strategies for dealing. Go buy her books.

Now, here are some basic steps, broken writers.


1. Acknowledge This Is A Thing.

If you are churning out thousands of words but you still hate the process of writing; if you've lost that burning need to tell the story; if you'd rather watch Psych reruns and knit than write...you're burned out.

People are going to tell you that you're not broken, that your writing is fine, that it's all in your head. On one hand, yes, it's in your head. So are a lot of things.

It doesn't mean it's not real.

They're trying to be reassuring and mean well, but you don't need to be reassured right now; you need to be validated. So I'm telling you, this is an actual thing. You're not crazy, it's not just in your head. You are going through a real thing, and you can't recover until you acknowledge there's something you need to recover from.


2. Make Other Arrangements.

You're a professional writer? You have deadlines? Make other arrangements. Not always possible, I know, but you want the minimum amount of pressure right now. The self-imposed deadlines? Toss 'em. If you're writing to keep a roof over your head and you absolutely, 100% cannot set things aside, fine. But I'm going to go ahead and say it: if you can, get a part time job stocking shelves for a few months. Which sounds stupid and crazy, I know, but just do it.

And the reason for this is...


3. Stop Writing.

Just stop it.

Generally I tell people to never stop. Write through the suck. Write through the doubt. Write when it's hard and scary. Write through exhaustion.

You can't when you're burned out. Lili put me on a three month regime of exercise, refilling the well, and a limit of fifteen minutes of writing a day.

Of course, just when I was feeling it coming back, I lost my full time job and was thrown into a tailspin of panic and depression. I completely lost my focus--it was several months before I could buckle down and do things that required my brain, like reading and editing, etc. But the benefit there was that it forced even MORE months of rest onto me. Which was ultimately the best thing for me.


4. Let Go.

I tried to get back on the horse in January. And I hated it. Hated hated HATED it.

Then I said, fuck it.

Flipping that switch changed everything. I know it's cliche, but it's true: you have to let go ENTIRELY. Let go of the expectations. Let go of the pressure. Just say fuck this noise, I will write when I'm good and ready. Because the more you try to force it, the more damage you'll do to yourself, and the longer your recover will ultimately take.

Interestingly, also in January I had a particularly bad episode of dysphoric mania that *probably* should've hospitalized me if I wasn't so goddamn stubborn. It resulted in a week of being sedated in bed and, you know, it was probably the next best thing for me. Like a brain reset. Because I let go of absolutely everything, keeping a focus on getting better instead or worrying, and that somehow shuffled everything into place.


5. Be Aware.

I can't say how or when, but it'll click again.

If you have faith in nothing else, have faith in that. Just learn to pay attention and listen, and when you feel that tickling of the Story against your consciousness, listen to it. Follow it. Learn yourself, learn to know when you don't want to write because something's wrong with you versus when you're avoiding because you're a lazy bitch.



6. Take It Easy.

Writing after burnout--after a long absence--feels mentally like you've been in an accident and you're re-learning how to walk.

You can't push it. When I got started again in February, I was very careful--I knew trying for 5K days wasn't healthy. I started small, just 2K and 3K here and there. It was a month before I built up to long days.

It's scary. There's a constant feeling of doubt, of terror that the magic is suddenly going to slip away again. The need to second guess, to go back and edit, is stronger than ever. There's a shakiness, reworking muscles that haven't been in use, struggling to find the balance between stretching and not straining.

You can do more damage to yourself in these early stages. So don't push it. At the end of writing sessions, leave yourself wanting to do more than pushing so hard you're burned out again. If you have a particularly productive day, force a break the day after.


So there are my tips. That's how Skyla got her groove back.

Have you been through long-term burnout? What strategies would you offer others?

So You Have a Stalker

Being a writer doesn't necessarily mean you will have a stalker, nor does not being a writer mean you're immune. But if you're a. a woman, b. existing on the internet, and c. have any kind of platform at all, each increases the likelihood that you'll end up with someone who will stalk, threaten, or harass you. (Again, this also happens to men; for the sake of simplicity, I am using female to be the default in this as statistically speaking women seem more likely to be stalked, but it is NOT gender-exclusive.) As a writer, this might be something you'll have to face if you haven't already.

First, what actually is stalking? Is it more than what we think of as trolling?

Stalking is a difficult term to define, and there are different legal definitions depending on where you live. But here's a simple one used by various sources (including, I believe, the Violence Against Women Act):

"...purposely engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others, or suffer substantial emotional distress."

I have been stalked. Good friends of mine have been stalked (some even recently). Sometimes by an ex, sometimes by fan, sometimes by someone decidedly NOT a fan, sometimes attempting to get back at someone connected to the victim. Sometimes these messages are overtly threatening, both to the victim or the victim's family. Other times they're not, but they're crossing a line any reasonable person would see when a person tries to insert his or herself in the victim's life for some unknown gain. Every person is different and therefore every stalking case is different and will require a different approach to deal with it.


This blog post isn't on the psychology of it--I'm not going to tell you what to do. This blog post also isn't going to be about the legality of it; I am not giving legal advice. If you fear for your safety, phone the police. Right now. But because this is something a lot of writers deal with, I would like to offer some general suggestions.


1. Read this book.

It's Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear. I hesitated for a long, long time because I saw an interview de Becker gave and a few of the comments he made about domestic violence bothered me enough to disregard everything else he said (Lilith Saintcrow touches upon it in her review here, and incidentally it was her support of the book that pushed me to eventually give it a try).

And then don't just read it once. Read it every year. I plan to, because despite having read it, societal conditioning still led me to ignore red flags and warning signals the last time I dealt with someone who made me uncomfortable, and the results could've been disastrous. As I reread it last summer, I felt like an idiot for not seeing things sooner.

Understanding the warning signals can help make you aware from the get-go who to be wary of and who to avoid, even in an online setting.


2. Keep everything.

Look, I'm a union man's daughter; I have it sewn right into my DNA that you keep records of everything, never throw anything out, and always have everything ready to back you up. When it comes to dealing with people online, you can never keep too many records.

Any message that makes you uncomfortable, or threatens you--anything at all--keep it. The messages on your blog? Maybe they're from a troll, or maybe they're from someone whose behavior is going to escalate. Regardless, don't trash them. Block the IP address, keep the comment in moderation, take a screenshot. I know it can wear on you, especially for particularly heinous comments, but some people stalk their victims for years. This information could help narrow things down later if problems escalate and police become involved.

Also include emails. It can be very tempting to direct certain email straight to trash, but the person sending the email will have no idea you didn't see it; all it does is help your own peace of mind. But ignorance is not bliss if you're dealing with someone who could become dangerous and you might need to establish a pattern later. I use Gmail and it's very simple to set up a filter and move incoming email into folders. I have a folder called "CrazyPants" and any email from a handful of people who either are prone to yell at me, harass me, or otherwise freak me out, go straight there. That way I have the messages saved but I don't see them; if I choose to go looking at them, I'm able to mentally prepare myself before I go looking, rather than have them simply land in my inbox.


3. Never react right away and take care how you proceed.

The line of thinking is always "ignore the trolls." And there is a logic to this as well when dealing with stalkers or someone possibly prone to violence; as de Becker says, each contact--even to say "stop contacting me"--buys you six more weeks of harassment. Sometimes, though, the opposite reaction is instinctual: to confront someone, to argue, to tell them to fuck off.  Sometimes restraining orders are helpful and at the very least provide a record; other times they can trigger violence in the perpetrator.

There is no right or wrong way to respond, and what you do must be carefully weighed depending on the circumstance. Sometimes hiding behind anonymity means shining a light on the stalker's real name will send them scurrying back to the shadows to find another target; other times, it might enrage the stalker and increase the frequency and severity of their behavior. Be wary of one-size-fits-all suggestions for dealing with such a situation, and seek professional help whenever possible.


4. Utilize "Be On the Lookout" Alerts.

If you're concerned at all for your safety, or even if someone is just raising red flags and make you uncomfortable, it is worth letting your friends and family know to watch out for this person.

There is a risk here that people will tell you you're overreacting. There is also a risk with employers; in the summer, when I went to my employer about a stalker situation to request that they forward me any emails that might come, I was later told that the "concern" regarding my stalker was a reason for giving my job to someone else. This is bound to happen: people either won't take you seriously or somehow blame you for what you're going through.

Be cautious who you tell--you want support, first and foremost--but don't keep it entirely to yourself. Often when a stalker finds his or her path to a target blocked, they'll then go at it sideways. This can involve trying to get to her through her job, approaching her friends, etc. If you have suspicions about someone, carefully let people know to be on the lookout for this person, not to respond to him at all, and forward you any communications for your records.


5. Be aware that you will hit roadblocks.

Social networking sites are wonderful but they often provide places for predators to hide without punishment. Reporting an impersonation on Twitter requires you to send in a scan of your driver's license, but getting Twitter to confirm whether or not, as part of their "we reserve the right to share parts of the complaint with the user you're complaining about" bit, they'll keep your personal info entirely confidential, is a bit of a challenge. Any site where membership and participation is free means user concerns are going to take a backseat to profitability from advertisers. This means a lot of these sites are not vested in protecting or supporting victims.

It doesn't mean you have to leave Twitter, or Facebook, or whatever, but understand that aside from collecting evidence if harassed there, there might not be much you can do.


6. Watch what you put online.

When you register your domain name, pay the extra $5 a year to make your contact information private. Invest in a PO Box. Don't include photos of your children or your home online. Don't use real names when referencing your kids.

On Twitter in particular, it's easy to feel like you're chatting with a bunch of friends; in reality, it's like standing on a stage with a microphone being completely unaware of who is listening to you. Just because the only people who respond are those you know or people who seem cool, you literally have no idea about everyone else paying attention. On Facebook, lock down the privacy on your personal page and ask family/friends not to tag you or your kids in their photos.

I had someone go through my photos and figure out where I live despite the fact that I never show street signs or the names on storefronts. Be 100% certain before you post any personal details that you're okay with them being out there and if you're unsure, don't take the risk. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT IF YOU ARE STALKED. I am not victim-blaming. But it's reasonable to be cautious about what personal information you share online as a public person.


7. Get help.

I'm not just talking legal help here. Depending on the severity of your experiences with a stalker or harasser, it may cause anxiety, fear, and impact your day to day life. Living in a state where you are constantly scared for your own safety will wear on you and it's important to seek treatment to ensure this person doesn't rob you of any more of your life than he already has.


I sincerely hope you never have to face a situation like this, or that if you do, the perpetrator slinks back and leaves you alone afterward. But be calm, be prepared, and take steps to deal with the situation.

And kill the person in fiction. Because you're a writer and that's just what we do.

Making Good Mac & Cheese

A few weeks ago, Mum was lamenting to me over the phone that she can't make macaroni and cheese.

She had just tried to do that for dinner and, according to her, it was TERRIBLE. She bought Velveeta cheese, thought it was going to be this lovely, creamy dish, and apparently it was awful and even the noodles didn't cook up right. Despite the cost and the work involved, she was giving leftovers to the dog.

"I just can't make macaroni like you," she said. "You can do that simple one pot kind and it's perfect--when I try it, it's always terrible."

She's right, I make pretty damn good mac and cheese. And not just one type, either. See, mac and cheese was my favourite food as a kid--still is the ultimate comfort food for me. I have a dozen different types, including: the cheap, one pot dish I cook in a dutch oven with a cheese soup base that makes enough food to feed an army; the gourmet kind I bake in the oven with various cheeses and a savory breadcrumb topping; the quick vegan kind with cashews; the time consuming vegan one with homemade aged cashew cheese; ones with veggie bacon, or roasted garlic, or broccoli, or a cayenne kick. And while I've browsed recipes for inspiration, I've never, ever used one directly while making one of these dishes.

I am the mac and cheese QUEEN. I could feed you a different type every day of the week without you getting sick of it.

Was I born with magic cooking genes? Is it all the virgin blood I add to the sauce in the name of the Dark Lord?

The thing I immediately thought of when Mum was complaining was all the times I've made mac and cheese that fucking SUCKED. Overcooked noodles. Not enough salt. Getting dried out in the oven. Having the wrong butter-breadcrumbs ratio.

I'm single now, and when I lived with someone for years, he wasn't home much. I've cooked a lot for myself, which meant no performance anxiety. The only person eating the food is me, so when it sucks, I shout FUCK, eat it anyway, and file away the experience as a lesson for next time. Mum's not a bad cook, she just doesn't cook from scratch as often as I do because she doesn't enjoy it, so she doesn't have the same amount of experience I do. She doesn't know what consistency to aim for, what it smells like when the cheese has browned just right in the oven, and she wouldn't dare add smoked paprika. But she still compares her practice efforts with the result of YEARS of experience fucking up the dish on my part.

Do you see where I'm going with this, writers?

You read a book sometimes and it's like OMG. It's a fucking revelation. The prose is stunning, the characterization is a work of art, and then, THEN, there was that plot twist that just wrenched your heart and made you sob.

And then you look at yours. My GOD, is that thing ever ugly. Every word just looks wrong. And it seems to SMELL. Like, really, there's an odor coming from your laptop every time you open the doc, and you're pretty sure it's not just you because the cat stares at you like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" every time you work on it.

But you've never seen the thousands of bad "mac and cheese dishes" that other person "prepared". All the times it over-boiled, burned, or otherwise went wrong. Before writing that perfect book you got in the bookstore, the author went through dozens of imperfect books. And before the perfect one became perfect, it was flawed, and went through lots of stages of polish.

If you were living in their kitchen (aka office), hovering over their shoulder, sampling all of these "meals" for years, your perspective would change entirely. The difference between a bad cook and a good cook is one persevered through a few hundred bad dishes to develop the skills and intuition that leads to an excellent meal.

It's fine to strive toward excellence, but don't compare your practice efforts with someone's finished results. It's not magic and it's not out of reach.

They've just been doing a lot of cooking.

You Are Going to Miss Something

I was talking with a friend yesterday about an opportunity she had to do some content editing. She's new (but will be excellent, I have no doubt), and was struggling with what to charge. Of the many considerations and issues she weighed, one concern that came up was charging money for a service like this and then missing something during the work.

A typo. A plot hole. An improper word usage. A pacing issue. There are all things that can be missed.

And here's what I told her, which I wish someone had told me way back when but I had to figure out with a lot of trial and error: you are going to miss something.

Just get that out of the way immediately.

Whether you're writing, or you're beta reading, or you're editing. Whether it's paid work or a favor. Whether you're the first set of eyes to go over something or the fifteenth.

You are going to miss something. You are going to make a mistake.

I know this because I read. I've been a reader since I was a toddler and able to hold a book.

And I have never, in my life (or at least recollection), read a single book without some kind of error in it. Whether it's something small that changes the sentence (recently I saw "didn't" when it should've just been "did"), or a grammar thing ("lay" when it should be "lie"), or a style thing ("my Mom" when it should've been "my mom"), or a chunk of text that was accidentally copied and pasted twice, or factual error, or something that contradicted something else (like a character wearing one shirt removing it twice in one scene).

No, not self-published books, either (let's not even touch those ones for the moment). Books with large publishers--in some cases, by NYT bestselling authors. And no, I'm not bringing this up to support the utter bullshit "editors don't edit anymore" cry that idiots spout.

I have a crystal-clear memory of when I was eight years old, on a trip to Santo Domingo, sitting at the resort poolside with a book in hand. It was one of the Nancy Drew Files. And suddenly there was a girl named Beth in the scene.

Beth.

I went back a few pages, scanned. No Beth. Who the hell was Beth? And then I realized it was meant to be Bess. Nancy's friend. Two letters off.

This happened well over twenty years ago. So my point is that this is not a new occurrence.

I know a lot of writers and editors. I know how hard people work. All of the examples above? The Nancy Drew book from the 80s? People worked their asses off on those books. Multiple pairs of eyes went over them. Extremely skilled people, who are damn good at their jobs, combed those books thoroughly. I have no doubt many, many errors were caught.

Something always gets missed.

As an editor, I've been handed books that went through three to four beta readers, multiple rewrites, and I still found timeline confusion and logic holes. And even then, after publication, I've been notified of yet another error I missed, and felt like a complete idiot over it.

As a writer, I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on my books. I reread them dozens of times, poring over all 100K-odd words of them. Other people go over comb them for errors. And yet someone, even years later, inevitably finds a typo (and deigns to notify me of this fact with implications I'm a moron for not seeing it).

None of this is meant to excuse deliberately sloppy work. In fact, this post isn't even directed at those sorts of people--as far as I'm concerned, they are still sitting in the corner without dinner and I will speak to them later when I think they've learned their lesson. No, I'm talking to those of you who try so goddamn hard to be perfect and beat yourself up later when you realized something slipped through. Or those of you who get so paralyzed by the fear of missing something that you don't get started.

You are going to miss something.

This doesn't mean you don't try to be perfect. It's not an excuse to get lazy. It's not a reason to stop striving for improvement.

But it means accept that even busting your ass, you're going to fuck something up somewhere along the line. It's just going to happen. It is like death and taxes that way. The most skilled people with extreme attention to detail and years of training and experience will still do it. We call it "human error" because we're humans: people with eyes that get blind to text and brains that get tired and workdays that get interrupted and memories that forget.

You are going to miss something.

You accept this, strive to do your best, and if you find out you made a mistake, take note of it and try better next time. Beating yourself up after the fact or being too paralyzed to start in the first place (both of which have happened to me) isn't going to Fix All the Errors, and even if it did...

One day in the future, you will still miss something else. Accept that now and save yourself the stress, because your energy is better spent on doing the work rather than worrying about the work.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

While I’ve tried to be an evil little bunny here and talked about writing-related things recently, the truth is I’ve felt like a big ol’ Liar McLiarson lately. And if you follow my personal blog in any capacity, you know why.

I was in a bad spot throughout 2013-writing wise (and a chunk of 2012 too).

You see...I stopped enjoying writing.

I do not call this “Writer’s Block” because, obviously, I think that whole concept is bullshit and if you whine at me that you’re “blocked”, I’m going to stab you with a pen. I wasn’t blocked; ideas were constantly streaming, I had tons of works in progress. In 2013, I wrote about 400 000 words total on various novels, novellas, and short stories.

I just...hated all of them.

“My words are broken” was my constant refrain. I kept putting my head down and working anyway, hoping to get through it, but I hated writing. Each word felt like it was plucked from my brain with tweezers and put on the page all wrong. Revision involved picking at the same sentences over and over and having them make less sense the more I looked at them. Editing involved excising large chunks of text, entire characters, and subplots, only to put them back again (and then delete again, etc etc). Given the choice between writing or knitting while watching shitty TV, I was picking the latter for the first time in my life and certainly for the first time in the dozen-odd years I've been doing this seriously. And this is nothing like me—no matter how painful, or difficult, or how scary writing was, I have always enjoyed it.

But whether it was a for-pay project or something for my own enjoyment, I’d come to hate all of it. I’d lost that burning need to tell the story, to express something. I stopped dreaming about the characters. I stopped hearing them. With no exaggeration, I can say it’s the most terrifying feeling in the world for me. Like I stopped knowing who I was.

Not to be overly dramatic but this is totally me.

What I’m saying is: it was bad.

It still is.

One of the hardest things for me is to ask for help, but I finally did, going to Lilith Saintcrow as she’s been at this longer than me and I knew from her writing-related blog posts that my typical process and productivity was similar to hers. She reassured me it’s a normal phase careers go through and offered me strategies to get through it (citing long term burnout as part of my problem—WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT BEING A WORKAHOLIC MIGHT BREAK YOU?), including refilling the well and not writing for a few months.

So I did that (which helped--the slight stirring of WANT is there again), but I was going through a major life upheaval around the same time. I picked up TheArtist’s Way and twitched my way through all the mentions of God to grab the bits of wisdom, trying to both recover myself and dig down deep to see what specific steps put me here. There are many of them (obviously, as it takes a lot to fuck me up THIS severely), not the least of which is the amount of pressure I put on myself. Especially now that an average of seventy-five percent of my income comes directly from writing—the rest being freelance—it’s hard to sit down and do anything without thinking about what I should be writing so I can pay rent and stuff. “You’re going to stave if you don’t spend your time wisely”, paradoxically, is quite paralyzing.

But I busted ass all fall writing shit I hated that would help pay the bills, and decided that this month—January—I was starting the year off right. I’d take the pressure off and the ONLY project I would write was a brand new book purely for myself, at my own pace.

I wrote 3K words over a week.

And I hate it.

The character isn’t talking to me. The world isn’t clear. I’m missing entire chunks of backstory. I’m convinced I am not smart enough to tell this story (it’s set in Nairobi—WHY would I set a freakin’ book in Nairobi??).

On the weekend, I got organizing stuff for the for-pay writing I do—just a list of projects I was overdue giving someone—and I had the mad thought of, “Why don’t I fuck around with one of these for a bit?” (Since I don't do freelance work on the weekend.)

Evil writers, let me tell you something.

I had fun.

I had fun on something I normally resent. I played with the characters, I wrote scenes that highly amused me. I didn’t stress about an outline or word count goals or the end result. But for a few hours, writing felt less like a job and more like something fun again, and in the most unexpected of projects--something for the market in a genre I loathe. But I grabbed onto that fun and held on, because it was the only spark of something I've felt in a while.

And you know what else? Last night before bed, the Nairobi book started talking to me as well. I don’t have a full handle on it yet, but it tossed a few huge revelations my way, and I know it’s simmering.

So here we are, evil writers.

We talk a lot here about shutting the fuck up and doing the work, because that’s what a writer does: she does the work. She sits her ass down every day and writes, whether it’s five hundred words or five thousand words. She values discipline and follow-through, and constantly strives to improve her craft. She doesn't wait for the muse: she beats it over the head with a two-by-four, drags it into the house, and pokes it with fire when it doesn't behave.

But she also needs to have fun.

Because when you’re on the twelfth reread of the book, you’re going to hate the story even more if you didn’t even like it when you first wrote it.

When your royalties work out to about ten cents an hour spent on a book and you’re questioning why you wrote it in the first place, perusing the first few enjoyable lines of the story should answer that for you. 

When the negative reviews come in getting the characters’ names wrong and seeming to have skimmed large chunks of the book, you have to remember that someone did like the book: you.

Because the only constant in this job is you. Everything else is a variable: who will read it, who will like it, who will buy it. None of that is in your control. Just you are.

Write for money—write to pay the bills. Deliver that sequel you’re not as jazzed about as the first book. Keep the market in mind when you’re brainstorming. There’s nothing wrong with any of that: skills to pay the bills, and bitches gots to get paid.

But if you're losing that joy, recognize it and do everything in your power to grab it again. Have fun or else you’re better off becoming a career artisan hummus maker*.

*Or something similar. Not that. Because that’s MY backup career.

Finding Your "Avengers"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the show) premiered when I was fourteen and I was instantly in love. The characters were a year older than me and I immediately identified with them, adored the dialogue and the writing, and it was hugely foundational for me. As a young writer, I was less interested in the actors than I was the writers of the show, and as the years went by, I began looking them up and following their other work. Of course, Joss Whedon was the focus of this, as he was the creator of the show.

So I immediately followed Firefly as it aired, and was crushed by its cancellation as so many others were. And Buffy's (at the time) conclusion. And Angel's cancellation. And Firefly's big screen continuation, Serenity, when it did not do so well.

Then a new show was on the horizon--Dollhouse! Would this one survive without network interference? Would I get another seven years of something I love? No, it had two short seasons (and look, I liked Dollhouse, and this post is not the place to bitch about what shows you liked or didn't like--I do recognize it was polarizing) before being cancelled.

Whedon was fairly obscure to a lot of people. Even with all of this work produced, if I brought up his name, I'd get a lot of, "Huh?" outside of geek circles. His Wonder Woman project didn't get off the ground either.

Then came The Avengers.

One of the highest grossing films of all time. Almost universally loved by everyone. I adored it and up until that point hadn't seen any of the related Marvel films. Hell, you say "Avengers", I think of Emma Peel (which I make no apologies for).

But that film was HUGE, it put Whedon the map in a way he wasn't before, and it afforded him a lot of new opportunities.

What is my point? Oh, I have one. Thank you for holding on for it.

Writers, sometimes you suffer setbacks because there is something greater for you waiting in the wings.

You work and you slave over a project you love. You put your heart and soul into it. And maybe it's good. Maybe it's fucking awesome. Maybe it's original and sharp and wonderful.

But maybe people don't respond to it. Maybe it's too hard to define, or the market's saturated. Maybe it's not the right time for it. Regardless, it's rejected. Whether by agents, or editors, or readers, that project doesn't really get off the ground.

We run into these blocks because they force us to grow. They force us to look for a new path. They make us problem solve, they make us start fresh.

This is one of the reasons why I encourage people to keep writing new books instead of pinning everything on one project. Why I don't think that, when your first series is rejected, you should immediately self-publish and forgo writing new books. Like your characters who are made stronger when forced to find ways around the obstacles you toss in their path, so are you.

I have hit these blocks over and over again. It sucks. It hurts. It's tiring. I wish certain a certain series did better as there are more books I want to write, but if it had, I wouldn't've gone back to the drawing board and created a new series--one that I am head over heels in love with. I don't know if it'll sell, but the process of writing it made me a better writer than I would've been if I just stayed with the same books for years. I have twenty-six finished books, dozens started, short stories and novellas all over the place, and each one forced me to learn and grow and become better at what I do.

There is a lot out of your control as a writer. You can't make people like or even READ your work. You can't dictate how your career will go. You can't force a home run. Now, you can practice your swing. You can put in the work to be better. But when you get up to bat, there are going to be all kinds of things out of your control: all you can do is swing.

If the ball doesn't connect, or it does but you hit a foul, or you strike out over and over...the only chance you'll have at hitting a home run in the future is if you keep on getting up to bat. If you keep on swinging.

There is no guarantee. And yeah, it might not be fair. I wish there was more Firefly. I would've liked to see Dollhouse grow and develop over time. But Whedon kept on moving forward, past every obstacle, and ended up with the motherfucking Avengers.

You can too. Your home run is out there. Keep swinging.

Wherein Mama Bitchstress Puts You in the Corner and Makes You Think About What You've Done

I traumatized a few people on Twitter last night because I ran into something horrific and had to share the pain.

It was a book on Kindle (of course), self-published (of course), in which the author was arguing with negative reviews. The book in question--fiction, and romance (or possibly erotic romance at that)--was written in all caps.

All caps.

Yes, THOSE ALL CAPS.

Also, it was riddled with spelling errors (like "eys" for "eyes"), wrong word usage ("bare" for "bear"), had almost no paragraph breaks, and...did I mention it was IN ALL CAPS?

The author's defense of this is that a) she is a new author, b) these books are "in progress", c) they're written purely for enjoyment (although she is charging $2.99 a pop for them), d) she works at a pantry kitchen and some of the money made will be going to feed the homeless.

No. No. No. Annndddd...no.

Listen to Loki. He only wants what's best for you.

I bring this up because this is not an isolated incident. Talk to anyone and you'll hear stories of books being sold on Kindle that flat out say "this book is a draft/work in progress" and "I can't afford an editor" in the description.

Come. Come sit at my feet as I have something very important to tell you. Lean in close. I want you to remember this.

YOU DO NOT PUBLISH BOOKS THAT ARE NOT READY TO BE SOLD.

Readers should not be paying for the "privilege" to be your betas or your editors. "Writers" who do this are the reason we can't have nice things.

If I go to a restaurant and pay money for food, I don't expect to be given a plate of lumpy mashed potatoes and still-frozen vegetables with someone's spit in a glass in place of water because the chef is "still learning." If I pay money for a meal, I expect it to be, you know, COOKED and well-prepared.

If I pick up a movie I've paid money for, I don't expect to see the actors fubbing their lines, mics in the scene, and the director walking in the background, with everything over a blue screen and no special effects added. If I see a movie, I expect it to be, you know, FINISHED.

When you ask someone to shell out money for your product, you damn well need to be sure it's the best fucking product and worthy of that money. There are hundreds of thousands of books out there--readers have a lot of options. They pay our bills, they support this industry, and they deserve the very best.

KDP is not where you put something "purely for enjoyment". You put shit up on your website or blog if that's what it's for and don't charge money for it. KDP is not where you go to find beta readers. You go to online writer groups and try to find crit partners. KDP is not where you go to find an editor. You find online resources for self-publishers and hire someone.

"But Mama Bitchstress, I can't afford--"

Stop it.

If you CHOOSE to self-publish--and it is a choice, no one is holding a fucking gun to your head--then you spend the money to have someone edit the work and put out a decent cover (not slap some Papyrus text on a poorly sized stock photo you threw into MS Paint). If you're charging readers money for something, you damn well better give them something WORTHY of that money. If you cannot afford an editor, then don't self-publish. Period. Full stop. The end. We all know normal typos happen, especially in longer works, but three or four of those is a far cry from BOOKS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS WITH NO PARAGRAPH BREAKS OMG SOMEONE SHOOT ME.

If Mama Bitchstress catches you pulling this kind of shit, I am going to come in to your house and take your keyboard away and I won't give it back until you've had time to think about what you've done. If you argue, I am going to beat you to death with that keyboard, pull out a Ouija board, call your spirit up from hell--where people who self-publish without an editor go, and they have to read SLUSH, 24/7--to yell at you some more.

This isn't just about readers, though.

This is about you.

Presumably you want a career, yes? You want to be around ten years from now? Do you really want people to associate you with a book written in all caps?

Let me tell you, you will be judged on what you've written regardless of what stage you were at when you wrote it. I am. All the time. And I'm not even talking about something as absurd as I've mentioned above--I'm talking about books that aren't terribly written, and have been edited, and are still young. They're not as I'd write them now but I don't get to go back in time and alter scenes I wrote when I was a twenty-one-year-old kid. And neither will you.

Respect yourself. Respect readers. Don't be in such a fucking rush.

Also, readers, please stop buying books that admit to only being drafts or works in progress. Because even if you one-star and return it later, you're only encouraging these people.

@skyladawn Any book description that admits to being a draft.... should be like a trap. Anyone who buys it gets their Kindle taken away.
— Wendy Sparrow (@WendySparrow) November 11, 2013

Comfort IN, Dump OUT: Publishing Edition

So nearly two months ago, I rather unexpectedly lost my job.

Okay, it wasn't unexpected. Not entirely. It was a change in my situation about six months sooner than I'd planned and done in a most...spectacularly not-cool way. And so I entered crisis mode: I'm a single woman, I've been doing the job of six people to pay the bills, I wasn't ready to be in this position again, lalala.

And the thing is that it affected more people than just me. I oversaw a lot of books and, therefore, corners of people's careers. People who trusted me, people who depended on me, people who recognized I was the glue holding a lot together. I'd stayed in an unhealthy situation for a long time because I didn't want to abandon those people and I worried, of course, about what would happen to them.

But my first worry was more "OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH AND LIVE UNDER THE BRIDGE AND MY BABIES CAN'T GO TO THE VET AND AND AND AND--"

Email poured in. And it was rather remarkable that many of the messages of concern came from people also affected by this and their first question was, "Are you okay?" Their second, "Is there anything I can do?" Even when I tried to revert to Momma Bear mode, one of my fellow ELEW members here said, "I'm old and cranky and have lots of contingency plans--I'm more worried about you."

Weight, it lifted from my shoulders right in that moment.

First and foremost, before worrying about themselves, they expressed concern for me and I felt that much more able to face this ugly block of fear for my future. As it should be, because at the end of the day, despite many people being affected, it was my entire livelihood that was gone, whereas for others it was a small part of their overall living. My friends and colleagues (generally) recognized that I was the center of this ring.

What ring? Here you go:

The Silk Ring Theory

That is from this article on how to not say the wrong thing, specifically to someone who is diagnosed with something bad but it can work in any kind of a crisis.

When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan's colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn't feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague's response? "This isn't just about you."

"It's not?" Susan wondered. "My breast cancer is not about me? It's about you?"

If you've ever been in or near that center ring, you know what it feels like. Your spouse is dying. You've been diagnosed with cancer. Your child is sick. Your mother died. You're dealing with a lot, you're in need of comfort and support, and many people--often well-meaning--manage to dump into your ring, leading you to feel like you have to comfort them rather than the other way around.

And the absurdity of this is that everyone has no shortage of people they can dump out to already; there is no need to go into the ring. In my case, people around me could (and did) complain to their spouses, to their friends, to their peers. If you look at that ring and find there is absolutely no one to bitch to--that everyone is more affected than you--congratulations! It is a GOOD THING to not have something horrible happen to you. So don't say anything.

I do not think the average person means to be douchebaggy in this way. I think it's that we automatically believe we're always in that center ring. It takes a lot of effort and self-awareness to realize we're not.

A good friend of mine has a debilitating chronic illness. Does it affect me? Yes. I worry for her, I get scared for her, I fret about how awful my life would be without her in it, I lament how powerless I feel because I can't help. Do I kvetch to her about this? Hell no. She's in the center of the ring when it comes to her illness. Would I kvetch to her husband about this? Again, no. He's closer to the center of the ring than I am. I kvetch to people outside the sphere of those affected by her disorder.

This is the ELEW blog, I know, so around we go back to publishing: crises happen all the damn time. To everyone.

Sometimes it's something relatively minor, sometimes it's something major. Deaths, illnesses, and other losses in our personal lives. Failed series, horrible reviews, low royalties on the less traumatic side of things. And before you open your mouth to bitch to someone, pause and think about where they fit in the level of rings around the situation.

As a reader, upon hearing an author you love is sick, I understand the thought of "What about that book of yours coming out next year?" Hell, even if they're not sick--I recall one author who gave birth and ended up needing more time off than expected, so her next book's pub date was bumped by an extra six months and readers damn near RIOTED about it. I get it, we are impatient for books we love. That's normal. But you don't say that to the author. Kvetch to fellow readers. Don't send whiny mail to the author needing reassurances about the book's release.

As a writer, when something happens with a publishing staff member you work with (your agent is ill and has to take another job, your editor leaves staff, etc), it's normal to be concerned about how it will affect you because it does affect you. But it's on you to figure out a game plan for yourself and not heap more worry upon them.

And also, as a writer, if an agent or editor mentions a death in their family, your first response to them shouldn't be, "What about the books in your slush pile?" (Nor should it be your second. Or your third. Maybe you shouldn't talk at all.)

It is reasonable to want answers when it relates to your career, I know. But choosing the time and manner in which you inquire helps an already ugly situation a hell of a lot, and choosing who you complain to also makes a difference.

And the thing is, I'll remember. I'll remember the people who were kind and supportive to me during a professional crisis, just like I remember the people who were kind and supportive during personal crises.

Before you type up that message to someone in a crisis or open your mouth to speak, pause and think, "Is this going to bring them comfort or am I expecting them to comfort me?" If it's the latter...just don't say it. Just don't.

You'll get your turn to be the center of a crisis, I promise. Publishing's full of them.

Mwarriage

Mwarriage is what brings us here today. Or, rather, a discussion of it. To expand on this post at my blog from July, I'd like to reiterate something.

I do not think books are our babies.

That metaphor made sense to me at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. I don't feel like I give birth to books; my process is one of excavation, chipping away pieces, discovering something full-formed beneath, uncovering layers. Further, I have manuscript graveyards with partially finished things, random ideas, and one does not leave children in partial stages of development scattered about the house, tucked in drawers and under the couch. I mean, one can, but it's not the sign of a good parent, now is it?

No, for me books are relationships.

Sometimes I see an idea or it sees me. We eye one another from across the room. Flirt with the possibility of it going further.

Or not...

I may write a few thousand words, sort of like going on a date to see if we're a match. Writing a book requires time and commitment--months if not years. Especially if you go the whole way and end up in a series. There will be good times and bad, days when you can't stand each other and question what the hell you're doing. Like all relationships, writing a book requires communication and a willingness to sit down and do the work.

Sometimes you get pretty far but there's no fixing things and you need a divorce. Sometimes separating for a few months and then you come back anew. There are lightning-fast relationships where just days pass between flirting, engagement, and eventually marriage as you know this one's for real and you can go the distance. Other books are a slow burn, going from friends to lovers over time.

I am a slutty, slutty polygamist. I have a lot of book relationships. I'm choosier now than I used to be but I still over-commit and struggle to give as much as I can to each of them. And no matter how committed I am, when a Shiny New Idea flaunts in my peripheral vision, I am right there. Part of getting older, though, is that I don't have patience for ideas that waste my time. I evaluate what comes to me, weigh it, and decide whether or not it's worth the investment.

The point of this post, however, goes back to a conversation I had with a writer friend the other day.

While my literary self is a polygamist, my human-dating-self is a monogamous, mate-for-life, gunshy dating newb. From a young age, I spent ten years with the same man, all during my formative dating years when I should've been figuring out who I am and who is compatible with me. So now I'm thirty-one with the dating-mind of a fifteen-year-old.

Part of the benefit of dating widely is developing an intuition for people, for knowing the signs of who is worth the time commitment from you, and what you think could grow into something long term.

So it is with books.

This is why I think it's important for writers to write a hell of a lot. To explore various ideas, to play, to spend time in different worlds. It's okay if those ideas don't go anywhere; one of the skills no one talks about but is absolutely necessary for a writer is learning to intuitively know what ideas are going to work long term and what ones should be discarded. To see past the Shiny New Idea to the core of the story and whether the temptation to play with it will be worth it in the long run.

I don't believe this is something we are born with; we learn by doing. We learn by making mistakes with The Wrong One and trying again. If you've been writing for a long time on only one thing and you look around at all of these other people with a couple different series on the go, it's not that you're broken or a one trick pony. It's just a skill you haven't fully developed yet, like every other writing skill.

The longer you've been at something, the harder it is, IMO, to let got and allow yourself the room to make mistakes. But it's that trial and error where we develop intuition and it requires the same time as learning grammar, pacing, structure, and everything else.

If this is an area you have trouble with, here is my suggestion: have a trial separation from your WIP. Then go on dates. Either try writing prompts or start playing the What If? game. If you have peripheral ideas, maybe commit to trying NaNoWriMo with them, or take a week where you write 1K a day on the idea. It doesn't have to go anywhere. Let me repeat that for emphasis: it doesn't have to go anywhere. This is a dating exercise for you and you alone, not publishers or crit groups or betas. Just you.

It's hard at first. Like going out on dates and meeting new people when you'd much rather sit home with your cats. But if you show up every day and give the other ideas a chance, rewiring your brain little by little, it'll not just open the possibility of loving other stories as much as you love your current one, but it'll give you skills you can take back to your current WIP. We learn something from every story we write just as we learn from each person we meet.

I'd go on but I'm afraid I can't; there's another Idea across the room. His lips are quirking into a flirty grin.

My heart is going pitter-patter. You guys, I think this might be The One...

Let's Dance!

[Okay this post is technically recycled, but the blog it was featured on is no longer around. So pretend its new.]

Come, sit around the campfire. I will tell you something I learned from a million years ago when I used to work in acquisitions (meaning, I read slush and sent rejection letters and hurt preshus feelsies).

Submissions is like dating.

Really, guys, stay with me here.

Submitting a book to a publisher is like asking someone to the prom. Your success is dependent on a number of factors, only a few of which you have real control over.

Would you walk into a room and ask out every person in there in the hopes of getting one to say yes? Um, you could, but that's not very effective. Everyone would see what you're doing.

This is why I advise people to customize their query letters, and not CC the submission to each and every publisher on their list at the same time. Yeah, sure, I know you're going to ask all those other people to the prom. But I'd sure like to feel like you at least know my name.

So now you're staring at this room of really pretty people. Okay, they're not all pretty. Some are ugly, but they'll be your back up choice. Do you just randomly ask them all out? Or do you wait and listen? Most are looking for a very particular kind of date, and if you spend some time around them, you'll learn what they want.

If you browse any publisher's catalogue, you'll learn what they're interested in. If you pay attention and follow agents on Twitter, you'll figure out pretty quickly what it is they like in a book, and what I don't. There's no big mystery. They often blog in detail about what makes them take certain books.

Now you've settled on a few possibilities for this prom date. You're both into the same things. You're exactly what they're looking for in a date, and they're totally hot. Now is when you run over and beg them to date you! Apologize for the fact that you live in a basement and have never dated before in your life, and don't bother combing your hair or anything.

Um, or you could clean yourself up and approach them respectfully.

First impressions count. You need simple cover letter, not long and rambly, that contains all the information they need to know about your submission. You don't need your life story in there. This isn't a discussion of marriage--this is a DATE, so to speak.

If someone you ask out says no...well, just tell her she's an idiot! You don't need her anyway! Like you even wanted to date her in the first place--ha! You'll just go...date yourself. That's the NEW way dating works--people just date themselves. Plus, she's kinda funny looking. You should tell her that too, and point out that other guy over there who's way hotter and just tell her that he's already accepted you anyway.

Or you could beg and plead. That'll work. Ask your friends to call her at all hours of the night and tell her what a GREAT prom date you'll make! Maybe if she just knew you better.

And you could ask her a bunch of times why she won't date you. Is it your hair? Your clothes? Is she not into your gender? Is it your breath? Oh, she must tell you why! And if she doesn't, maybe she just doesn't mean it. Maybe you should just tell her that you're going to the prom together no matter what.

Um...alternatively, you can thank her for your time and move on.

Listen, kids: no means no, and yes means yes. I've dealt with all of the above. None of it is attractive to a potential publisher, save the last point.

It sucks major hairy goat ass to be rejected. I know. So you go cry to your friends, then go out and do it all over again.

You're going to write another book someday (I hope, and if you're serious). So you may decide to query this publisher again. The rejection was definitely not personal. Don't burn your bridges. If you yell at everyone who rejected your first book--which, just maybe, wasn't the best thing you're ever going to write--do you really think they're going to take an unbiased look at your second?

Bridges. They are of the good. Don't set them on fire, or you'll have nowhere to go and you'll be dancing by yourself at the prom.

When you're dealing with a publisher, treat him or her like someone you want to date. Be respectful. Don't come on too strong. Present the invitation to the prom, but remember there are a lot of other people asking and don't take it personally if she declines your invitation.