Hello, writers. Last Saturday I participated in the Kids' Author Carnival at Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village and had the surprise and delight to meet former Write On! regular DeeJay Lyn. We haven't seen her in a while, during which time her YA novel Rogue has been published by Nancy Paulsen Books, a division of Penguin. Congratulations, DeeJay Lyn!
You see what can happen.
Before the event, we children's authors were stored in a room that I really want to use in a book sometime, but I'm hampered by the fact that it had no reason to exist. Reality doesn't have to be believable. This room was reachable only by a catwalk bridge, which is pretty freaky if you happen to be terrified of heights. Anyway, that aside, the room was crammed with authors, many of them quite famous, and all of them just people like us. BIC, HOK, TAM, and this was the result.
(DKos's own AudioGuy was there too; a delightful dude you should go out of your way to meet some time.)
After the event there was a book sale and signing, which I was dreading would be like this, but it went okay.
Then I spent a few days in NYC visiting with people in the industry. A thing that often comes up when you talk to agents and editors is just how subjective this business is. All of them have seen manuscripts they rejected sell elsewhere and do very well. When they say something “isn't for me” apparently they really actually mean that. They don't think it's bad.
From our perspective, of course, that's hard to believe. We always take a rejection as a value judgment. Someone sitting in a high tower has gazed down upon the pitiful outpourings of our hearts and judged them, and incidentally us, unworthy. But when the same, unretouched pitiful outpourings then delight another editor or agent, we realize it really is subjective.
(I know I've shared this story before, but it's such an apt example. A couple hours after Jinx sold in a pre-empt, I received a form rejection from an agent I'd queried a few months before. He said the manuscript just wasn't for him.)
Trying to think if I learned anything else useful in New York that I can pass on. Eh. Just this, I guess: The publishing industry isn't dead or moribund AFAICT. It seemed in the pink of health. Heavily reliant on bestsellers and backlist classics to support new and midlist releases, but that's always been the case.
I saw the perps of some of these bestsellers and they, too, are people just like us.
Write on.
Tonight's challenge:
Since the above doesn't lend itself to a challenge, write a passage or scene, under 150 words in length, containing this line:
The knock-knock joke probably wasn't appropriate.
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