{"id":161,"date":"2013-09-29T13:31:27","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T20:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?page_id=161"},"modified":"2013-09-29T13:31:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T20:31:27","slug":"how-to-get-rejected","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?page_id=161","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Rejected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday, September 2, 2012<\/p>\n<p>Panelists:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John Berlyne, Agent<\/li>\n<li>Susan MacDonald, Writer<\/li>\n<li>Lee Harris, Editor for Angry Robot<\/li>\n<li>John Helfers, Literary manager, Editor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[Note &#8212; This panel was extremely entertaining. \u00a0It&#8217;s been a year, and I can remember that it was a small, crowded room that wound up full of laughter constantly, mostly because of the banter of Lee Harris and John Berlyne. \u00a0Looking ahead at my notes, I wound up translating what they were saying into things a writer should do. \u00a0Their presentation, however, was examples of things a writer should NOT do, which was hilarious.]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The rules apply to you. \u00a0Keep your ego in check.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Work on your craft<\/li>\n<li>Know the rules of structure<\/li>\n<li>Investigate submission guidelines<\/li>\n<li>Have some humility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You&#8217;re either a writer or not. \u00a0Finish your work before submitting<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Be ready to write your book, more than once.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t talk about your work: write it<\/li>\n<li>You have the time to write. \u00a0You just have to make the time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Talk to your peers, read about your craft<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take yourself out of your comfort zone<\/li>\n<li>Join a writing group<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you are challenged<\/li>\n<li>Read outside your comfort zone<\/li>\n<li>Go to odyssey<\/li>\n<li>The agent wants your finished product, regardless of your comfort zone<\/li>\n<li>Learn to discriminate the advice you receive. \u00a0It might not all apply to you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When it&#8217;s finished enough, send it in. \u00a0Aim for &#8220;good enough&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You&#8217;re wasting your time if you don&#8217;t move on to new work<\/li>\n<li>Put your first draft away for a while, then revise<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Get opinions of your work from people that aren&#8217;t trying to protect you<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The criticism you receive won&#8217;t always be right, but it&#8217;s always worth consideration<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re going to hear stuff you don&#8217;t want to hear \u00a0[Note in the margin &#8212; I wrote &#8220;Ginny Good&#8221; here next to this point. \u00a0I have no idea why, or what it means.]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Send to agents and publishers that are interested in your subject material<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Be polite and nice, even if you&#8217;re rejected<\/li>\n<li>All the info you need for successful submissions are online<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t piss away your opportunity by not submitting properly<\/li>\n<li>The query letter is the first example of your writing<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t lie in your query letter<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday, September 2, 2012 Panelists: John Berlyne, Agent Susan MacDonald, Writer Lee Harris, Editor for Angry Robot John Helfers, Literary manager, Editor [Note &#8212; This panel was extremely entertaining. \u00a0It&#8217;s been a year, and I can remember that it was a small, crowded room that wound up full of laughter constantly, mostly because of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":107,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-161","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/161\/revisions\/162"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}