Keep Calm...

Even the most nicely phrased “No” is still a rejection. But even the bluntest refusal has something you can learn from it.

I’m lucky; my latest rejection is full of encouragement, advice and helpful comment. And now I’ve gotten over the sting of it also being a “No,” I thought I might share it with you, line by line, along with my thoughts on how I’m going to use this valuable resource.

Background first – although it’s all in my earlier posts, if you want the nitty gritty. Basically, this is from a super agent – director at one of London’s biggest agencies – who took a chance on me and an earlier novel a couple of years ago.

Even after a lot of work, that one didn’t sell, and I’ve been trying to come up with something else she might like for the last little while. She shot down my latest manuscripts – Dream a Little Dream and An A to Z of Love. Here’s why:



Dear Katy


Sorry it has taken me a little while to come back to you. I do think you should share your work with other agents, yes, because you are a good writer and your work has charm and may well appeal to someone else more than it does to me right now.

She’d mentioned before that she just didn’t love these books enough, but that the passion required was, of course, subjective. I’d asked if she thought I should share it with other agents, and this was a good, honest, helpful response to that. I’m prepping the manuscript for submission now, based on her feedback and my own gut instinct.

I’ll be totally honest with you, wanting to be helpful more than tactful. Commercial fiction is terribly susceptible to fashion and although trends come and go quite quickly they totally dominate the markets while they reign. There was a point a few years ago when vintage-y, romantic, rural, wistful fiction was ‘in’. And it probably will be again before long. But right now your ideas and writing style feel a little out of step. Publisher aren't buying many debuts at the moment but when they do they are modern, harder-edged, witty and sexy rather than gently humorous. (Or they are book club reads - sort of accessible-literary).

This is useful market information. Unfortunately, hard, witty and sexy are not really my forte (pity my husband...) I don’t enjoy that sort of thing so much, and so I write it very poorly. This is one area where I might just have to wait for trends to change. I’m actually working on something in a totally different genre that might have more success, so perhaps it’s time to focus on that for a while.

I liked the warm tone and lovely detail in DREAM but the characters felt rather cliche'd to me, especially the older generation. I am really sorry, but I think putting a lot of old people into a book for young people is a big risk. Similarly, in AN A TO Z, the first few pages feature a dear old soul. There are loads of members of the RNA out there writing books about people in their 50s, 60s and older and they're not getting published. Write about young people! At least you know what it's like to be young in 2010...

This is really helpful. Unfortunately, in DREAM the older generation are vital to the theme and meaning of the story. This tells me that this didn’t come across strongly enough, and I need to work on it. That said, there are things I can do to make it feel ‘younger.’ The main couple are in their late twenties, which is fine, but there’s also another sub-plot couple, a little younger, who have very little page time. I think that developing that sub-plot more thoroughly might balance things out better. Obviously, I also need to do some deeper character work, to make them feel more real. I’m already working on ideas for this.

In A to Z, however, the older lady sidekick could really be any age. If I revise this for submission later in the year, maybe I'll make her in her forties, instead. We'll see.
You are a very able writer who definitely deserves to be published. If you want to write rural communities, that's fine, but make sure the emotional storylines feel modern or relevant to your generation. Have a look in the shops at what is working in this area (like that Herriot type stuff, about being a modern vet, I forget her name). And keep your characters in check; they are liable to run off with a scene and change its tack altogether at the moment! Use dialogue more sparingly, to leave room for action. Don't lose your sweet romantic touch but up the ante in plot terms.

Again, fantastically useful. Lots of things to focus on in the rewrite, and in future books. I need to sharpen up my scenes, my dialogue, and do some more plot work. Yes, that’s a hell of a lot, but did you read the first sentence of the paragraph? She thinks I deserve to be published. That means I’ll put in all the work necessary.

It's not easy to criticise someone who seems on the surface to be doing everything right but I hope some of this feedback is helpful and I definitely do think you should seek other opinions. I am sure quite a few readers will spot your talent.

All my very best

So, despite the work ahead, everything here is encouraging – at least, that’s how I choose to view it!

What did I do next? I sent a grateful, polite and warm email back, to which she responded very positively again – leaving the door open for me to send her something direct in the future, if I think it will suit. That’s a nice position to be in.

Of course, I know that some rejections are much harder to learn from. On the face of it, a form letter tells you nothing at all. But look deeper. Do you need to work harder to hook the reader’s attention from the off, perhaps? Or do you need to do serious work on your plot/characters/writing style? If you’re not sure where to start, get other people to read your work. Online critique groups, writing groups, even a very literary friend (as long as it’s someone you trust to tell you the truth, however hard).

Keep at it, and you’ll progress to the personal rejection – and mark this as the triumph that it is! Someone saw enough promise in your writing to tell you what you need to work on next.

Perhaps the most important thing is to see each rejection as a step forward. You’re marking time, paying your dues and – most importantly – learning every single step of the way. Take encouragement from your rejections, and they’ll be worth much more than the paper they’re printed on.

I mentioned last week that The Agent had decided not to take on my latest novel, and that I was waiting to hear what her reasons were, before deciding what I should do next. She said she’d write ‘in the next few days’ and we’re now approaching two weeks, so I’m sending a gentle reminder today, just in case she’s forgotten about me.

I hate to nag, really, but I’m not the world’s most patient person. And sitting at home imagining all the terrible things she might be thinking about my writing is not helping with the keeping calm, or with the writing on.

As my father would say, the problem with us Analytical Masterminds is that we like to have a plan. We’re happy to amend the plan as circumstances change, but we need some sort of map or chart to look at and say, “Right now, that’s where we’re going.” Without it, we’re lost in the wilds of Powys following misleading yellow diversion signs, wondering if we’ll get there before last orders.

And at the moment, I’m wondering if I’ll ever be a published author, because without The Agent’s feedback, I don’t have a proper plan.

I do, because I am an utter geek, have a flowchart of possible plans, though, based on possible responses...

It helps me keep calm. And write on.

I said yesterday that I’d post today about where I am in my writing career, and how I got there. The quick answers to those questions are: Nowhere and Slowly.


The longer answer is a little more complicated, but I’m going to summarize.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I started taking it seriously when I left university, nine years ago. I studied my craft, I got better, I started submitting to agents and received many rejections ranging from the usual form letter to, finally, a personal ‘I like this, but not enough. Send me what you do next,’ from the number one agent on my list.

What I did next was a novel called ‘The Fairytale Way,’ which became ‘Breaking the Spell,’ during the year I worked on it with The Agent, and finally, ‘Everyday Magic,’ at the point when we finally sent it out to editors.

A lot of them liked it. None of them liked it enough.

I was pregnant at this point, and sick every day, and more tired than I thought possible. But I took the news in good part, and headed off to work on something new, a novel called ‘Playing Make Believe,’ sending chapters over to The Agent for comment every couple of months.

Six months later, we both decided we hated it. I think the title might have been the best bit.

And now I had a small baby to deal with. One who didn’t like sleeping very much.

Still, I was determined to make the most of my maternity leave. I wrote the first draft of two more novels during the second half of 2009, one women’s fiction, like the previous books, called ‘An A to Z of Love’ and one YA paranormal called ‘Sea Fever’ that I wrote during NaNoWriMo.

I knew that ‘An A to Z of Love’ needed one hell of a revision before I could send it over to The Agent, so I signed up for Holly Lisle's How to Revise Your Novel course, which I found immensely helpful. Still, it took six months, and since my husband and I had decided that I wasn’t going back to work, I found myself with a little time on my hands.

So I wrote the first draft of another novel, ‘Dream a Little Dream,’ which I still think is possibly the best thing I’ve written to date.

I set myself a deadline – by the end of May 2010 I wanted to have both ‘An A to Z of Love’ and ‘Dream a Little Dream’ edited and over to The Agent. And I did it.

Then I sat back and waited.

And waited.

And then last Thursday I heard back from The Agent.

She hates them both.

Well, what she actually said was that she didn’t love them enough to offer to take either of them on. But in the end, that feels like the same thing.

So, now I’m waiting to hear why she doesn’t love them, if it’s fixable, and whether she thinks I should send them out to other agents, or if she wants to see whatever I write next.

But I’m not just sitting around and waiting. I’m revising ‘Sea Fever’ instead. And I’m entering competitions, like the Savvy Authors Drive 'Em Wilde contest, and I’m thinking about writing short stories, or even poetry, to stretch my writing muscles. I’m writing this blog.

I’m keeping calm, and writing on.