Rice Out
Every so often, I read about a writer - an established writer - who Rices Out, meaning that they publicly lose their shit over rejections or bad reviews. This is named after Anne Rice who responded to bad reviews on Amazon with a full blown losing of shit, inveighing against everyone who would dare say mean things about Lestat's Latest Romp (I believe that was the title).
I just find this phenomenon so amazing because I also figure that the Nick Paciones of the world are weeded out in the submission and rejection process. Oh sure, we are now in a vanity press world where every writer can go "screw you guys, I'm just gonna publish it myself" (hence the fact that one particular Nick Pacione is well known) but for the established writers - the ones who get contracts and reviews in Publishers Weekly and major chain stores prominently displaying their stuff - I figure that they don't get to be where they are unless they go through the process of sending out their stuff and getting rejected.
99% of aspiring writers don't make it and that's fine because most of them aren't serious about it. They want the fame and the accolades. If you read any first novel that contains a book signing scene (I call these books the OMGIWABs - OMH I'm Writing a Book!) you will find this awesome fantasy about how the writer is all sexy and the center of attention and instead of a few little old ladies and people wandering in off the street and college students who have to be there, that writer gets a crowd of groupies all just willing to throw their hot virgin selves at the writer.
The fantasy is very powerful, but eventually it fades. The aspiring writer will write a story and show it to a friend or a Creative Writing class. Eventually that aspiring writer will hear something that he or she doesn't like very well. Now the writer can take the criticism for an opportunity to improve one's writing, work with an audience, figure stuff out. Or the aspiring writer can get frustrated, moody, distraught and angry. The defensive "I'm just writing this for myself" comes up even though the story was shown.
I always assume that you can tell how serious you are about writing if you can take criticism of your stories seriously without feeling like you're personally being attacked. This is an occupation where you have to take heart from the fact that the rejection letter was critical of an aspect of your story because that means that the editor actually read it past the first sentence.
But someone who goes through all these rejections and criticisms, who put their hearts and souls into their stories only to find that people don't like these stories and then move on and keep working - I figure that when this person finally gets to a publisher that he or she shouldn't care that some guy in Iowa with a blog thinks that his latest book is predictable and his characters are poorly drawn and that overall he sucks balls (figuratively, not literally which doesn't really matter) but then you find out that they do.
It's just weird.
I just find this phenomenon so amazing because I also figure that the Nick Paciones of the world are weeded out in the submission and rejection process. Oh sure, we are now in a vanity press world where every writer can go "screw you guys, I'm just gonna publish it myself" (hence the fact that one particular Nick Pacione is well known) but for the established writers - the ones who get contracts and reviews in Publishers Weekly and major chain stores prominently displaying their stuff - I figure that they don't get to be where they are unless they go through the process of sending out their stuff and getting rejected.
99% of aspiring writers don't make it and that's fine because most of them aren't serious about it. They want the fame and the accolades. If you read any first novel that contains a book signing scene (I call these books the OMGIWABs - OMH I'm Writing a Book!) you will find this awesome fantasy about how the writer is all sexy and the center of attention and instead of a few little old ladies and people wandering in off the street and college students who have to be there, that writer gets a crowd of groupies all just willing to throw their hot virgin selves at the writer.
The fantasy is very powerful, but eventually it fades. The aspiring writer will write a story and show it to a friend or a Creative Writing class. Eventually that aspiring writer will hear something that he or she doesn't like very well. Now the writer can take the criticism for an opportunity to improve one's writing, work with an audience, figure stuff out. Or the aspiring writer can get frustrated, moody, distraught and angry. The defensive "I'm just writing this for myself" comes up even though the story was shown.
I always assume that you can tell how serious you are about writing if you can take criticism of your stories seriously without feeling like you're personally being attacked. This is an occupation where you have to take heart from the fact that the rejection letter was critical of an aspect of your story because that means that the editor actually read it past the first sentence.
But someone who goes through all these rejections and criticisms, who put their hearts and souls into their stories only to find that people don't like these stories and then move on and keep working - I figure that when this person finally gets to a publisher that he or she shouldn't care that some guy in Iowa with a blog thinks that his latest book is predictable and his characters are poorly drawn and that overall he sucks balls (figuratively, not literally which doesn't really matter) but then you find out that they do.
It's just weird.