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With Christmas firmly behind us and a new year looming, packed with possibility and fun times, I wanted to share a few of my favourite things with you. One of them is Christmas. Yes, call me crazy but it’s my favourite time of the year besides Easter. I do have to admit that in our house, it’s not the birth of baby Jesus that gets us excited, it’s the chance to unwind and spend a few days being merry with our families. It’s about watching my four year old just about have an apoplexy when she opened her Nintendo DS and it was bigger than her sister’s. It’s about my six year old sticking her nose in the first book and forgetting about opening the rest of the presents until reminded there might be more books (and there was!). It’s about my father in law’s third hug for the year (despite not being a hugger, this one I know is special). A couple of my superficial faves are handbags and shoes but if you know me, then you already know I have a slight obsession. Only slight though. If you’re wondering if I went to the boxing day sales, then the answer is a big fat yes! Some of my fave movies include What Dreams May Come with Cuba Gooding Jr and Robin Williams. You need a whole box of tissues to watch that one! I love the fluffy ones like Pirates of the Caribbean and the not so fluffy like the Underworld series about vampires and lycan, and the Lara Croft series. I own everything with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson together and a heap of Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt. In fact, in my box of movies, I have them sorted by actor. Bones and Castle have me gripped and won’t let go (but I think that has more to do with the eye candy than anything else). I love reading Ian Irvine and Raymond E Feist. The series that shoots off from Magician written with Janny Wurts about Mara of the Acoma (Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire and Mistress of the Empire) are still my favourite fantasy reads although seconded very closely by Anne Bishop and Robin Hobb (esp the Live Ship Traders series). My favourite colours (or non-colours if you want to get technical) are black and grey. I don’t mind a little coral thrown in these days but I prefer dark shades. Our house is now decked out on the inside with black white and red which is awesome to look at! Instead of doing the usual contest after Christmas about the best or the worst present you ever received, I want to know about what makes you smile. My kids do that when they’re not making me cranky, but I want the superficial stuff. Like one of my best presents this year (not the best but right up there) was the gift voucher I got so I could shop at the Boxing Day sales. Made me grin like an idiot! I’ll get one of the kids to pick a winning comment at random and send a box of Cadbury Favourites to make the commenter smile some more =) Have a safe and happy new year’s eve and I’ll see you on the other side!
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I'll get to the merry Christmas but first, a little something on rejections...
A few of my friends have been woe-is-meing over rejections lately (rightly so) and I’ve had my fair share already so it begs this question – what do you do about them? Do you Google the agent/editor/publisher, print their picture out and hang it on your dart board? Do you count them so you can avoid some magical number you have in your head that it takes to get to before you’ll get a yes? Do you save them all in a special file tagged ‘people to eliminate first in the event of a zombie apocalypse and then pin the blame on the undead’ . Me? I don’t do any of that (I promise). I’ve never even counted them. I do keep the rejections in my email, though this is more so I don’t double up and resend the same thing to the same person. I don’t want to upset someone so they dump my name on their spam list. Or worse. Gulp. Block me. But really, at the end of the day, you sent your submission to an agent/ed/publisher and they didn’t want it. Upsetting? Yes. The end of the world? Never. Read the rejection word by word, slowly and with dry eyes. Did they give any feedback on the why’s and why not’s? Did they offer an invitation to submit again? After you’ve established this, put the letter/email away for a few days and come back to it and read it again. Never send an email asking them to change their mind. Never send a letter asking for a reason. Say thanks for your time and then move on to the next agent/ed/publisher. If it’s the 36th rejection you’ve received for the same manuscript and you’ve never got any feedback or further requests, it might be time to shelve the story for a bit and work on something new... It’s really important to stay professional and to think positive. Especially at this time of year. I hate getting bad news at Christmas but could you imagine getting hate mail at Christmas? Nasty emails? Paper bags filled with poo? I don’t much think agents/eds/publishers would either. I don't know if it's just me but I don't get upset over rejections any more. Maybe I'm used to them? Just kidding. I think it's because I'm in this for the long haul and eventually I know the right person for my story will come along and they'll love it so much they'll buy it. And then we can all live happily ever after. Now onto something that isn’t a rejection. I won Spacecoast Authors Launching A Star contest in the historical category!! Merry Christmas to me! It really has been an interesting year filled with wins, finals, rejections, happy dancing and commiserations. Here’s hoping next year is filled with sales! For everyone! Happy holidays and have a merry Christmas! I’ll catch you in the new year =) |
DisclaimerI'm a published author but I'm still mostly stumbling about in the dark looking for the right paths so this blog is about that, though sometimes something will give the me the shits and I'll have a bit of a rant. I'll try not to be offensive but occasionally my mouth opens without asking my brain's permission so I'll apologise in advance. Archives
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