Inspired by the comments thread on my recent rejection post, my agent, Deidre Knight, has written a blog post on the concept of exclusive submissions. Go read it. She is, as usual, utterly brilliant, and completely correct.

Rant warning.

I’m going to say something, and if you’re an aspiring writer, you’re going to ignore me. I know this. I know this because you’ve heard it before, and you didn’t listen then. I know this because I have heard it a ton of times myself, and I spent most of those not listening. But I’m going to say it anyway, in the hopes that though you won’t listen, it might sink in a little bit, so that it will only take another hundred or so times of someone else saying it that it finally creates enough momentum in your eardrums so that it’s not ignored.

STOP FOCUSING ON STATISTICS.

Stop asking agents or editors what percentage of books they request from a query letter, or what percentage of requested manuscripts they make an offer for, or how many new authors they sign on in a given period of time. There is flood and drought. I only know of a few instances where someone has a “quota.” And their quota is never as high as the possibilities.

Stop asking what your chances are of getting published. This isn’t a lottery. They aren’t picking your book out of a hat. If you have a really good book, your chances are good. If you don’t have a good book, your chances are wretched. (stolen from Theresa Nielsen Hayden, but all the more true considering the source)

Stop looking for a secret handshake. There is no secret handshake. There are many doors. Don’t try to figure out the best way to write a book or sell a book. There is no best way. There’s only the best way for you. Stop studying. Start writing.

Stop thinking that if you chase a trend, you have “a better chance” to get published. You’ve got it backwards. It’s not about the trend. It’s about the book. If you have a great book, and it happens to be trendy, you have a better chance of it getting published than if you have a great book, but it’s not trendy. If you don’t have a great book, it almost definitely doesn’t matter whether it’s trendy or not.

Stop asking an author how many books they wrote before they sold, how many rejections they got before they got an offer, how many contests they won before someone requested something, how many years they worked at it before something happened. They are not you. Their writing is not your writing. The time that they first sold is not the time that you first sold. Even if it was a few months ago.

Stop asking how much a writer typically makes on this contract, that contract, the other contract. Stop asking which subgenre makes the most. Some writers make a lot. Some writers make a little. Most writers can’t figure out why. There is no standard. There is no typical. Some people’s first contracts are worth a hundred times some other people’s first contracts. For books of the same length. In the same genre. If people actually knew a foolproof way to make more money, this wouldn’t be the case. Your question is akin to asking how much a business typically makes. A child’s lemonade stand is not Microsoft.

Seriously. Just stop. You are trying to introduce controls on something that doesn’t have a control. Knowing how many queries receive rejections from a given agent is not going to tell you a single thing about the likelihood of your query receiving a rejection, unless the answer is “all of them, because I’m not taking on new clients.” And even then, not so much.

I understand the pain. Honestly, I do. I’m a very analytical person, and I like studying up on statistics as much as the next person. And I, too, find it frustrating that I can’t give you statistics. But I don’t think they mean anything. A few years ago, someone wrote an article in the RWA that was a statistcal study of Golden Heart finalists, and what happened to them after they finalled: how long it took for them to sell, whether they sold that manuscript, whether they got an agent, etc. Let me tell you, the answers were all over the map. And in the end, they didn’t mean anything. When you ask an agent what percentage of clients she takes, you not only have to ask her that, but yo have to ask based on the quality of your manuscript, the genre you are writing in, and how recently a particular editor called her to say she was looking for something just like you wrote.

Do you see how useless it is? Because this isn’t about numbers. It’s about words. And you just can’t quantify that.

So stop trying. Write. Write the best book you can, and you’ll see that the statistics don’t apply to you at all.

Today’s post is at Romancing the Blog. Go read it. It’s not as dirty as my last one, but still fun.

In other news, Lancelot the Laptop and I had a tearful, intimate reunion on Friday night. Very intense. I have pictures. (Not pictures I’d put on the internet…) Just kidding, Sailor Boy. You know I love you best.

I attended an RWA chapter meeting, did some reading (more on that later), and had a movie night with Max, who, to my horror, admitted she’d never seen The Matrix. we remedied that situation ASAP. I think that there might be a certain statute of limitations on clasic film. After a while it’s so ripped-off that the viewer doesn’t have the correct responses. It’s like when I showed Casablanca to Sailor Boy and he made all those comments like, “he’s standing there, at the train station, in the rain, waiting for her? That’s so cliche” and “Wow, did he really just say, ‘Here’s looking at you, kid?’”

Urgh. That’s why it’s a cliche, meathead.

Sunday night I went to a dinner party, where I was inexplicably drawn into a conversation about theology with a girl I’d just met. Everyone else was talking about Firefly and prostitution. Why does this always happen to me at dinner parties? Then they watched Grey’s Anatomy with the same amount of enthusiasm and audience feedback as Monday Night Football. I haven’t really seen that show except for the pilot, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on, except for one of the characters was really mean and had sex with this sweet, cute, (doctor!) guy who was in love with her and broke his little heart. Everyone both in the show and in the room with me seemed to think this was a bitch move on her part. Inclined to agree. They also might be the best looking hospital staff I’ve ever seen. Like, even prettier than E.R. Well, maybe not George Clooney E.R., but any E.R. that doesn’t have George Clooney. Patrick Dempsey, in particular, just keeps getting better with age.

I’ve only seen a few episodes of House, but I did appreciate the fact that House actually came out and said that his crack team of genius scientists were way too hot to be working there. Honesty in TV Land is a good thing.

Lancelot the Laptop update: So, I called yesterday. (I’d called on Monday, and they told me they were still trying to figure out what was wrong, but since I hadn’t heard a word, I thought I’d try again.) At first the lady who answered gave me the whole “be patient” spiel, but then I said, “Okay, I know you all are swamped, but you told me on Sunday that worst case scenario, it would be back in 7-10 days, and it’s been 5 and it’s not even out yet.” She said, “Wait a minute, you brought it here on Sunday? Please hold.” A minute later she came back. “It’s not the hardware, it’s the software, and we’re working on it now.”

So that was cool. In other news, I asked her if it was the “Apple virus” and she cracked up, saying that not only was it not the Apple virus, because you have to actually download a photo from someone you don’t know through iChat and install it on your harddrive, and I’m not doing that, am I, but also, the virus doesn’t do anything, and stop reading scary articles. (Funny, my agent said the exact same thing to me earlier this week when we were having “shop talk.” I’m clearly a neurotic freak.)

And then she said that she couldn’t stress enough how important it was for me to be backing up my files on something external. And I said, “like .mac accounts?” and she said, “nooooo, because that’s only a gig,” and I said, “oh, like flash drives?” and she said, “noooooo, something much bigger,” and I said, “like what?” and she said, “something bigger,” and at that point, I began to feel less like I was engaging in a commercial conversation with a customer service representative and more like I was playing a game of twenty questions and I asked her straight out what she would recommend. I think they might be prevented from actually recommending a product to me. She said, “like a DVD,” but I said that Lancelot the Laptop (which I did not call that to the Apple employee, what do you take me for?) didn’t actually have a DVD burner on it, and then she made a few more cryptic comments, none of which were actually, “come down to the store and buy this external backup thingy that we sell it’s so great and it’s only $399.99 but it comes with a free iShuffle,” which I think I would have appreciated, since it would have been so much easier than me trying to guess what she was talking around. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason she couldn’t tell me what she was talking about was because perhaps it was made by The Enemy.

Note: I do not call them The Enemy, mind you. But some Appley people do, and those people probably include the ones that write the behavior manual for employees at Apple Stores.

Anyway, I like the Apple Store people. I want to buy them all a drink. But I can’t, because if I have to pay for this repair and/or buy a new ‘puter, then I will be a connosieur of ramen for several months. I will definitely have to curtail my sushi habit, that’s for damn sure. (It is a habit, by the way. Totally addictive. I get cravings.)

In vaguely related news, I have turned in my proposal for SSG2 to my editor. Yay!

I received my first fiction rejection on May 6, 2003. (We shall not discuss romantic rejections.) It was for a partial that had been requested by an editor from a query letter and sent seven months before. Unlike college admittance letters, a fat package was not a good thing. My mother opened it (I was out of town on business) and read me the letter over the phone. She was in tears as she said, “Oh, honey, they aren’t going to publish it.”

“Mom,” I said. “It’s okay.”

You see, in the year between the time I finished writing the book and the time I got the rejection letter for it, I’d joined RWA and learned that rejection letters? So common. So not a big deal. So a rite of passage, to be borne with pride. like a battle scar on a hardened warrior. This was my first book. And I got a request, and a rejection letter that went on for several paragraphs and asked for something else by me. I was pretty happy with it. Plus, I knew by that time that this book? Not so good.

I got my second rejection letter two weeks later, and I cried like a baby. This was the third project I’d written, a sexy little novella. I thought it was my best yet. I’d finished it in April and submitted. I was way too close to it. The rejection letter was a few lines long, though focused on specific elements of my book, enough so that I knew it was not a form letter. It also asked for something else, though at the time, I was very focused on the fact that it said that though my wirting was good and lively, that my story was not romantic. It said it three times, as a matter of fact, and mandated that, should I ever submit to this editor again, to “Remember: romance, romance, romance!”

Then we got to 2004, Rejection Central.

My third and fourth rejections came hard on the heels of one another in February of that year, one from an agent whom (like that, Justine?) I eventually ended up signing with, the other from an editor, both for the fulls of the same book, both a month or two after the work had been submitted. Both asked to see something else from me. Noting a pattern?

Rejection five came in April, a good ten months after I’d submitted the partial for a book to an editor. Form letter. Ouch, that stung. Never had one of those before.

However, by that point, I was hooked. I figured that my way of going about getting rejection letters took too long, and didn’t get enough results. So I proceeded to submit to many more places. And get many more. A few dozen agents, no waiting. August and September were especially fun, since the bulk of my agent rejections landed in those months. Plus a few hurricanes and a few editor rejections, for good measure. Several more trickled in in October and November. I had a crisis of faith in the beginning of October, which was thankfully averted when I won a pretty little writing award.

Most of these were form letters. Some said, “we don’t like this, and here’s why.” A few were rude, telling me that they didn’t acquire my kind of submission, instead, they acquired romance and women’s fiction (what did they think I’d sent them, a cookbook?) I figured I got the wrong letter stuffed in my SASE. They meant to use the *other* form letter rejection. I got a few “really love this, but my list is full or I have no idea how we’d market it, but I’m sure someone else will.” I liked those “close calls.”

I stopped fussing over form letters. I liked the simple “Not for me, better luck elsewhere” on a 3×5 card far better than the 3 page rejection that, before it was over, said it liked/hated my voice loved/was annoyed by my main character enjoyed/ was bored by my plot, and thought my hero was winning/pathetic. I’d prefer no feedback to contradictory feedback, frankly.

In 2005, I got one more (well, two more if you include the form letter that was followed up immediately by a phone call from the agent saying she was sending it out for a second opinion — she said the form letter had been a mistake). The legitimate one was a few paragraphs about how she thought it was pretty good, but wasn’t wild enought o take it on, and please send her something else. Shades of my first few rejections.

A week later, I got my first offer of representation. After signing with my agent, we sent my book out. A lot of interest, a few passes. The passes took the form of all the other rejections I’d ever gotten. Don’t like it, not for our list, good but not crazy enough about it, nice voice, send us something else she’s written, etc. Then we sold the book.

I’m not done getting rejections. I’d like to make sure that gets stated. Everyone gets them. Bestselling authors get them. I have proof.

I know some people who cry over every single rejection. I know some people who aren’t effected by any. I’m somewhere in the middle. Some rejections sting more than others.

I know some people who burn all of their rejections. I don’t know why they do this. I mean, for tax purposes alone, it’s good to have these records. I also like to have the written evidence of the path I’m taking. I like to be able to remember why it is that I have such warm feelings towards that agent who I’ve never worked with. Oh, yeah, that’s right, because in her rejection she said that my hero was to die for and I’d no doubt have a wonderful career, but she’s not taking on any new clients right now, and besides, where would she sell a book that wasn’t quite a paranormal romance, but wasn’t a straight romance, either?

I think a lot of aspiring writers get very caught up in their rejections. Earlier in my career, I did the same thing. I think it’s mostly a waste of time to pore (another contest entry fuckup, for those of you following along fro the last post. I said “pore over paperwork” and the stupid idiot contest judge said “pour”) over your rejection letters, trying to divine some meaning from them. Do I think that the agency that said they didn’t handle my type of project REALLY thought I’d sent them a cookbook instead of a romance? Were they trying to tell me something about my romance? Come on… I truly believe that sometimes, even when they are trying to give a reason for their “no,” they’re full of shit. I see al ot of writers trying to figure out what an editor means, what is the secret code behind “just didn’t love it enough” or “not right for our list.” They spend HOURS trying to figure this out. They enlist the help of everyone in their writing group. You’re never going to get an answer, buddy. They’re just not that into you.

Still, if something resonates for you, then by all means, listen to it. I got a rejection from one editor that made statments about the way the sexual tension was presented in the opening chapters, and, looking over them, I thought she was right, so I addressed that in my revisions. But I also realized that maybe my novella wasn’t “romantic” enough for the publisher that rejected it, but that’s all. That one editor had a certain view of what was romantic and mys tory didn’t fit. But I don’t spend a lot of time deciphering rejection letters anymore. Nine times out of ten, you don’t learn aything from them.

I think part of the reason people pay so much attention letters to them is because they pay so much attention to the submissions themselves. I did this, too. If I got a request from, say, Cindy Hwang, I would do all kinds of research about the Berkley publishing program. I’d spend months imagining myself as a Berkley author, and trying to think of what that would mean for my career and blah blah blah blah… Talk about putting the cart before the horse! A slush pile submission, unagented, and I’m already picturing myself with the book in hand. I think the key is trying to divorce expectation for your submission. Hope for the best, of course, but don’t focus on it. This is why it got easier when I queried 20 agents at once. One rejection out of 20 hurts less than one rejection out of one. (We won’t talk about what 18 out of 20 feels like.) And that’s one of hte myriad reasons why I like having an agent, too. She handles the submission stuff. I’m already one step removed, so when she says, “So and so has passed, so and so is getting another read,” I can just be like, “Cool, great, let me know what happens.” I have a writer friend who tells her agent not to tell her about rejections. Just about offers. I’m too much of a control freak for that, but I can see the benefits.

A very wise agent recently addressed this topic. One thing she says is to stop saying “so and so rejected me.” They didn’t they rejected the one project you sent them. (My agent rejected one project I sent her, too. Big whoop.) They might have taken the next. (mine did.) I know she’s right. (She rejected one of my books, too.)

Lancelot the Laptop Progress Report: No news doesn’t seem to be good news. Has Yousef the Apple Genius Abandoned us? Methinks that if it’s not something they’ve figured out by now, it’s probably terminal.

In other news, Sailor Boy has gone to California to go skiing with some people who shall remain nameless, because, well, that’s part of their deal. He’s also taken a copy of my ARC. So, um, party at my house, Max? I’ll get my hands on Carnivale.

I’m currently juding two RWA writing contests, and, as usual, after the first half dozen entries or so, you start to notice a pattern in the problems. Last week, agent Kristin Nelson blogged about an overuse of the “portal plot” in YA fantasy. I haven’t noticed that, but I have noticed a ridiculous amount of something that the SFF folks call smeerps:

A cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior. “Smeerps” are especially common in fantasy worlds, where people often ride exotic steeds that look and act just like horses. (Attributed to James Blish.)

Seriously, folks. You aren’t gaining any points with the reader if every evening your characters sit down to a meal, at a table, with forks, knives, and spoons (or even chopsticks!), eat stew, drink wine, speak recognizable English in every other facet of their existence, and happen to call their meal sizxcletexch. Just call it dinner and be done with it.

Had to vent. Now, do not take this to mean that I’m not a fan of writers inventing their own lexicon. On the contrary, I’m all for it. I just finished a very interesting novel called FEED that woulnd’t work if the narrator wasn’t using his own made-up words for everything. But that’s the difference. The made-up words were completely organic, and he used them all the time. (Because he didn’t know the real ones, but whatever). If you live in a fantasy world where things are different, then sure, you’re going to call things by a different name. But those things have to actually be different. Like, say this fantasy world you’ve made up has a very strong religion, and every night, before you eat, you have to pray for two hours to a god called Sizxcle. Then maybe you would call your dinner Sizxcletexch, because it means “after the praying to Sizxcle.” Who knows? You can get away with just about anything if you motivate it properly. But… just calling it sizxcletexch becaue you think it sounds cool, even though it’s just dinner… is rather bizarre.

And, while we’re at it, name your characters something pronounceable. Harry Potter is perfectly normal. Frodo Baggins isn’t hard to figure out. If Tolkien and Rowling can pull it off, then why must you stick us with Frhcle’thxsough v’Ardnghrtow’firns el Gh’ritlb’nikmosidj?

Lancelot the Laptop Report: Still doing diagnostics. No longer thinking it’s the logic board. Prognosis shaky…

So, since I’m using Sailor Boy’s dinosaur, Red the Dell Laptop, and it doesn’t have a wireless card, I haven’t had online access at night. Boy, has that done wonders for my production. I’ve written 2,000 words on SSG2 since Sunday. (Current working title: Secret Society Girl Gets Laid. Not as snappy as Justine’s Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!, but it will do. Plus, it makes MAE happy, which she deserves, as she’s apparently come down with an inconvenient case of the bubonic plague. Feel better, MAE!) I know 2,000 words is like, nothing, compared to the recent output of TJ, or even more, of Novelique, who has written a whole novel since last Wednesday. Of course, we’ve known for a while that Gena is not human. I really admire her ability to turn out quality work at that speed. She wrote Awaken Me Darkly in six weeks, and I think it’s great! Usually, quality suffers when I rush, and I end up rewriting everything.

My current production rate is pretty good for me. I’m more of a tortoise type. Slow and steady. I really, really want to have this book done by the time the first one comes out, but to do that (I figured it out yesterday), I have to write 660 words a day, EVERY day. Figuring in days that I won’t write, things that will have to be completely rewritten, etc., I think trying to up production on writing days to 1,000 words is a cool idea.

Aliens like Gena aside, I’ve heard now from a slew of editors and agents that one of the biggest problems they see in submissions are rush jobs. Writers aren’t taking the time to properly polish their manuscripts, or they are rushing to hit a trend. In genre fiction, it’s important to be able to turn out a steady project (usually, several books per year), but you shouldn’t be sacrificing quality for quantity, especially in the beginning of your career.

I used to hang out on a fiction writing board with a girl who bragged that she wrote 14 manuscripts in six months (it often takes me that long to read fourteen books!). But she rarely got past the query stage with any of them. I couldn’t help but think that her time would be better served by writing six or even three manuscripts in that time (heck, let’s go really wild: one), and focusing on each. She always argued tht “once you sell” editors wanted writers who could produce, who weren’t just a one-hit wonder. But as far as I could tell, she wasn’t hitting anything. It took me three years to write four books, and another six months to write my fifth, and no one ever said I was too slow.

This writer also said if she didn’t get them out as quickly as possible, she’d lose interest in the story. But again, that doesn’t bode well for her career. You don’t have the luxury of getting bored with your story — you’re going to be working on it for a year! After I turned in Secret Society Girl (after going over it again several times myself), I revised it twice, reviewed it for copyediting once, and proofread it twice. I’ve probably read this book thirty times. There is so much post-production work to be done on a novel, that you need to be able to go the distance with it. Even if that means it takes a while.

This weekend, my computer began freezing and crashing. Now, most of you probably don’t think much of this phenomenon, but since I have a Mac, I was entirely freaked out.

I packed it up in a little case and made an appointment at the Apple store, which, since it’s President’s Day weekend, was positively overrun with people who wanted to buy/repair/return/drool at iPods. I was so glad I made an appointment.

You discover a lot of things when you spend four hours at the genius bar in your local Apple store, mostly that most people don’t have the slightest clue how to work their iPods. I was one of two people that had actual computer problems all day. And one person’s computer problem was that they’d purchased a lemon. My computer is not a lemon,a nd in fact, has been working fine almost the entire time I’ve owned it. I also learned that I should have a “dot mac” account, in order to do backups. I am very happy to have this info.

So, practical upshot, my ‘puter is a very very sick little puppy. Something about the logic board, or perhaps the hard drive.

Anyway, it’s broke, and now I’m waiting to hear from the nice “genius” at my local Apple store (his name is Yousef, he’s quite the cutie, and we got to know each other pretty well during the four hours I spent at the Apple store yesterday) about whether or not it’s going to make it. The last I saw of it, they’d cleaned it all up (amazing how grubby that white keyboard can get) and made it look, unfortunately, a bit like it had been made up at an undertaker’s office for its final burial. NO! No, I won’t let myself think of that. I’m sure it will be fine. Poor baby. It was all alone there last night, sick and scared, probably… my computer, my love…

I wouldn’t want to have to buy a new one right now. It’s just… money I don’t need to be spending in this contract. Plus, buying a new computer would most likely necessitate purchasing another copy of MS Office, since I use Word, and Gates makes you pay through the nose for the Apple version of that shizzit. Though those new intel-chip ones look real purty…

NO! My computer will be fine! Yousef will save it, I know…

So Kristen Painter tagged me to talk about five of my guilty pleasures. But I thought the whole point of a guilty pleasure is that I’m able to enjoy it only because no one else knows I do it, like the way one of my college roommates has a collection of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen videos. (Ooops.) So if I tell y’all about them, then maybe I won’t be able to enjoy them anymore? Like, it used to be reading children’s books, but then Harry Potter went and made that all de rigueur, and besides, now I do it for industry research and stuff, so it’s my job.

Sailor Boy, by the way, says I don’t have guilty pleasures. Just pleasures. Because I don’t feel guilty about pleasure. Which is pretty much true. I am very enthusiastic about all things, even things that I should probably be a bit more discreet about — like how much I like popping the bubbles in bubble wrap. Especially if they’re the super-sized bubble kind of bubble wrap.

So I have been sitting here, trying to think of things that I’m actually guilty about enjoying. I’m totally not guilty about my fleece-lined satin robe from Victoria’s Secret. It’s sexy and slinky and cozy, and I feel proud of the fact that I pulled that off. I don’t feel as if I’m pulling a fast one when I pour myself a martini that’s more olives than vodka. It’s being… thrifty. And sober. And any time I think I’ the only person who has memorized every scene from The Princess Bride, Swingers, the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, or half a dozen Buffy episodes, I’m proved wrong, so why should I feel guilty if the rest of y’all don’t?

This is hard.

Let’s see. I feel a bit squeamish about the fact that I keep picking up my book to fact check for something I’m putting in book two, and end up getting lost in it. Actually, what I’m really squeamish about is admitting that I do. I’m not particularly proud that I’m addicted to tabloid info about Britney Spears, TomKat, and anything about the Simpson girls. The more outlandish, the better. I love getting into arguments about industry stuff. I’ll do it all day long, even if it doesn’t concern me in the slightest. Naps. (Sailor Boy does admit that I’m guilty about sleeping when there’s work to do.)

That’s about it. I tag anyone wwho wants to be…

Two important facts about me:

1. I don’t understand the vitriol against country music. I love it!

2. I stopped liking Sex and the City after Carrie was too stupid to realize that Aiden is a god. Dumb chit.

Anyway, mmmmm…. John Corbett. He’s so dreamy. And apparently, he’s also now a country music recording artist. Now despite the fact that there are some bizarre rhymes in this little ditty (rhyming “table” with “grateful” is an interesting choice) and he has an odd predilection for hugging his fellow bandmates, who all look like they escaped from prison in the seventies, it’s a pretty cool tune.

In the video, he does a lot of chilling, walking, and barbecue-eating with his country-western clad girlfriend, played by Bo Derek. Or perhaps not “played” so much, because they are together in real life. Bo Derek must be encased in some sort of time warp device, because she hasn’t aged a day in the last 20 years.

Mmmm… John Corbett. He can be as dorky and weirdly rhyming and mutton-chop sporting as he wants to. I think he’s the kind of goofy that I find unbearably sexy. I even liked him when he was doing that bizarre New Age riff in Serendipity. Beter than hangdog John Cusack, that’s for damn sure. What a dumb film that was.