Rejections...

Should or shouldn't I? It seems more like Shakespeare's "To Be or Not To Be."
I'm talking about my work...my first novella, my debut write which I've started pitching to agents and publishers.

I've pitched something like 30 over letters to literary agents but thus far have received only 12. All nicely spelt 'cute' rejections. Most of these rejection letters smell the same, the standard rejection template that goes like this: "I've gone through your work and am sorry to say that we have to reject blah blah blah."

These agents do not tell why they reject nor do they tell how it should be modified or rewritten. What I can't understand is; these are agents looking for representation but when they don't help in telling you what they want, how can writers and authors alike know what to write or pen?

The funny thing is, agents always ask your biodata more than what you have written. I've come to the conclusion apart from making money out of writers and authors, agents seek recognition and prestige from work done by renown writers and authors.

The other conundrum: What if writers run out of agents for representation? All hard work goes down the drain right. Hmmm!...I hope my work will not culminate to that stage.

But, I'm not the kind of person who gives up easily. I'll keep trying up until I've exhausted the last bloody blithering agent out there and if that at all too fails, I'll just dive into the ocean and swim like a a million leagues and go knock on their doors personally with vengence for representation...hahaha


Anyway... to make me feel lighter with rejections and all, I took the liberty and trouble to find rejections of well-known writers and authors who were rejected by agents and publishers. These authors made the agents and authors eat their own words when their books, later, were sold millions of copies. Had they stopped and listened to these agents, we would never have had books such as : To Kill a Mockingbird, Watership Down, Lolita, Catch-22...and so on

Here are some:-
Jorge Luis Borges
'utterly untranslatable'

Isaac Bashevis Singer
'It's Poland and the rich Jews again.'

Anais Nin
'There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic.'

Jack Kerouac
'His frenetic and scrambled prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don't think so.'

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence
'for your own sake do not publish this book.'

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
'an irresponsible holiday story'

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
'an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.'

Watership Down by Richard Adams
'older children wouldn't like it because its language was too difficult.'

On Sylvia Plath
'There certainly isn't enough genuine talent for us to take notice.'

Crash by J G Ballard
‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'

The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
'This will set publishing back 25 years.'

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
'Do you realize, young woman, that you're the first American writer ever to poke fun at sex.'

The Diary of Anne Frank
‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’

Lust for Life by Irving Stone
(rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies)
‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
'The grand defect of the work, I think, as a work of art is the low-mindedness and vulgarity of the chief actors. There is hardly a lady" or "gentleman" amongst them.'

Carrie by Stephen King
'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'

Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’

The Spy who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
‘You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.’

Animal Farm by George Orwell
‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA’

Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
‘My dear sir,
I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.’

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
‘... overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.’



Fingers Crossed.