Burning Question: What’s your writing process?

Remember the beginning of that show Murder She Wrote where Angela Lansbury joyfully typed her mystery novel and then put it into a lovely leather binder?  Didn’t it all look so cozy and neat and clever?

I wish had an orderly writing process. A set method that I could follow that would result in a full-length novel manuscript in a set amount of time.  If I had such a thing, I could sit down on, say, Tuesday, and type away each day following said process (with that cheerful little Murder She Wrote theme music piping into my studio). I’d dress in scholarly tweed clothes, and casually nibble on fine chocolate pastries while I create. Then I’d happily type “the end” on the final page, and put it all in my own lovely embossed leather binder. Sigh.

But I’m a messy writer. There is no cheerful music (well, perhaps some Coldplay blasting now and then). I work odd hours. Did I brush my teeth? Did I brush my hair? Who cares? I’m writing, damn it.

It’s all quite disorganized.  First I’m seized with a notion. Sometimes it’s a scrap of dialog between characters. Sometimes it’s a final scene that rips my heart out.  Actually, I’m often seized.  Kind of turns me loopy. I jot down this scrap or that scene and then tuck it away.  If it keeps popping up in my mind, and if I continually add to this with more scenes, more dialog, side plots, then I know there’s something to this, and it’s time to really get writing.

I usually have a sense of where I’m going, a final destination to write toward, but I often have no clue exactly how I’m going to get there. I take false turns, I create scenes that never should have been created, and when I sense I’m off track, I recalculate the route, like a GPS. I’m crazed. I’m a mess. I’m having a wild and wonderful time.

Honestly, I’ve tried to be more organized. To outline, to do character sketches, to plot in advance, to brush my hair and wear tweed jackets with patches on the elbows…but somehow it all takes the fun out of the journey and I lose the will to create.

So, I simply wait to catch on fire with an idea, then run like hell toward the finish line.  Painful. Dangerous. Sometimes unattractive. Not too civilized. But always very exciting.

Marie Lamba is happy to report that she DID brush her teeth today. She’s author of the young adult novel WHAT I MEANT… (Random House), and her articles appear in numerous publications including Garden Design, Writer’s Digest, and RWR – the national publication of Romance Writers of America.

Burning Question: What’s your writing process?

Jonathan Maberry’s recent blogs on the writing process brought me back several decades to when I was a grad student at the U of Penn, doing my Master’s thesis under Hiram Hayden, renowned fiction editor to some of the most prestigious writers of the 20^th century.

My thesis explored the experience of writing and involved questioning his stable of writers.  We’re talking William Styron, Joyce Carol Oates, Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke.  The list goes on, full of icons of modern American literature.

I compared the writers’ answers to various theories of creativity by thinkers like Sartre, Freud, Burnshaw and Langer .

But that’s not the point.

The point is that I got to hear personally about the writing experiences of the most eminent, exalted and accomplished writers of the time.  Thirty-odd years later, I still have my notes and many of the questionnaires.  Here are some excerpted tidbits:

Anthony Burgess had no appetite while writing; in fact, he felt nauseous and survived on strong tea and pints of cold milk.  He heard entire passages in his head “like a tape recording.”

Arthur C. Clarke said he couldn’t consciously remember writing anything.  When asked what “style” was, he replied, “Damned if I know.”

William Styron answered that question, “Who knows?”

And apparently, Joyce Carol Oates didn’t know either.  “Good question,” she said.  When asked why she wrote novels, she said, “Why ask questions about novels?  Why read?  Why live?  Why not?”

Mario Puzo said he wrote novels “for an escape.”  He rewarded himself with food after stretches of writing.  His characters often defied him; he didn’t control them, and often had the sense of “being written.”

Wallace Stegner didn’t read/let others see unpublished work because, he said, “I’m scared.”  He usually made his protagonists women because “women represent civilization.”  His idea of style?  “The man, best arrayed.”  And he wrote novels “to try to make sense of my life.”

John Fowles declared that when he began a novel, he knew “the country, not the road through it.”  And he didn’t have control over his work.  He said, “I believe in muses.”

Jerzy Kosinski reported writing in 15-18 hour stretches during which, “There is an obvious physical stress (perspiring), and a sense of well-being ‘after.’”  When he finished a segment of writing, he felt “charged with sexual energy.”  While writing, he allowed no one to see his work because he “could follow advice too easily.” So he insisted on “no advice, no readers, complete secrecy.”

William Styron wrote with #2 pencils on yellow legal pads so he could make erasures.  And he made a lot of them.

Kurt Vonnegut claimed not to enjoy writing, but to be “bored” during the process.  He said he wrote only when he was “broke.”  Whenever he finished a piece of work, he was “hilariously relieved.”  And his books were “100% autobiographical, spiritually.”

Elie Wiesel said he could “see” his characters clearly, and found out where his novels were going only as he wrote them, often letting the writing emerge on its own.

Some planned their plots; others didn’t.  Some wrote regularly for set periods of time; others wrote in a frenzy until they were exhausted.  I searched for patterns and consistencies, common threads among the fifty or so questions each author answered.

In the end, what fascinated me most was how many of them shared the same writing experiences as the rest of us.

It seems that, whether we work with #2 pencils and yellow pads or laptops, whether inspired by real events or immortal muses, whether our books are raging successes or remarkably unnoticed, we all work the same way: word by word, line by line, page by page.  No matter what century we’ve written in, sober or besotted, famous or forgotten, iconic or unknown, we each set out on the journey of writing unprotected, venturing  into territory as yet uncharted, to create plots that sometimes befuddle us and characters that don’t hesitate to disobey or defy us .

Whatever differences there are in the writing process, one thing seems clear: each of us braves that beguiling and treacherous path alone.

Merry Jones is the author of the Zoe Hayes mystery series, including THE NANNY MURDERS, THE RIVER KILLINGS, THE DEADLY NEIGHBORS and THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS, as well as non-fiction and humor books, including I LOVE HIM, BUT… and IF SHE WEREN’T MY BEST FRIEND I’D KILL HER.

Time for a new Burning Question about writing and publishing. Check in daily to see how we Liars respond. To see past answers to other Burning Questions, click on our For Writers page.  And if you would like to pose a Burning Question for our group of authors to ponder and post about, just shoot us an email or post a comment, and we’ll be happy to consider it!

Burning Question #9: What’s Your Writing Process?

Liar Kelly Simmons kicks this one off:

Many writers and would-be writers I meet talk about the notion of a “writer’s retreat” with reverence and longing.  The desire to disentangle from the detritus of ordinary life and concentrate fully on the task of writing can be as coveted for a writer as a trip to Europe.

As a veteran of 2-day, 4-day, weeklong and this past summer, a cherished and longed-for 4-week sojourn, I offer some advice.

1. Have a goal that reflects not who you are, but what you need.

If you don’t have a concrete realistic goal, you may end up wasting whatever time you have set aside –and then feeling extremely guilty about it. Most people perform best with a goal – unless you are the type of person who always sets goals.  That type of person might truly need unbundled, open expanses of time purely for brainstorming. So be sure to give yourself what you need, not what you want.

2. Limit distractions, but provide counterbalanced distractions.

It’s one thing to focus on your writing, it’s another to put yourself in prison. I once organized a trip for myself to go and write in a nice hotel in another city where I didn’t know anyone, eating room service for breakfast and lunch for four days, emerging only in the evening to exercise in the hotel gym and have dinner at the hotel bar. I allowed myself a massage at the spa after two days as a reward. This sounds, on the face of it, like heaven, doesn’t it?  Focused and contained. Room service!  A spa!  But it was truly painful because it was too one-dimensional.  I needed fresh air, rolling hills, and someone I knew to have dinner with to counterbalance those long days writing inside at the desk.

3. Layer in rewards.

I know what you’re thinking:  the retreat is the reward, because it obviously requires money, time, and sometimes precious airline/hotel points to put it all together.  But you would be wrong.  It doesn’t have to be fancy or as expensive as a massage (although after a day hunched over the keyboard, a massage is a kick-ass reward if you can swing it).  I have kept myself on track writing with as little as a bag of almond M&Ms.

4. Set realistic expectations.

Although we often see books with dedications that say things like “thanks to James & Emily for giving me their space to finish this novel” there is no guarantee that retreat = genius.  I am just as apt to write something brilliant when I am busy and crazed with my day job as I am when I am relaxed and open in a quiet, sun-filled space.  You just need to put in the hours – wherever they are spent.

Kelly Simmons is the author of Standing Still (Simon & Schuster) and coming in February, The Bird House. www.bykellysimmons.com

An Extra Extra! Feature:

For some of us, writing fiction seems a lot like trying to pick up a Hot Stranger in a bar:  The opening line will make or break us.

If we blow our opening line in a bar, the Stranger turns off, never to find out what scintillating people we are; in a book, the reader stops, never to find out what scintillating prose awaits them on page two.

In other words, if we don’t grab them immediately, it’s over.

Or so many of us think.  Of course, grabbing doesn’t have to involve a chokehold.  But it does have to make readers (or Strangers) want to find out more.  To engage them.  Build curiosity.  Create intrigue and draw them in.

Convinced about the importance of immediate grabbing, many writers sweat over these opening lines.  Even talented, accomplished authors can find first lines daunting, getting intimidated, believing that these lines have to be perfect.  Powerful.  Strong.  Meaningful.  Dramatic.  Unique.  After all, these first sentences are supposed to set tone, establish style, lead readers into the world of the book—In short: hook them.

So what is it, exactly, that makes a good opening line?  Are there rules?  Definitions?  Does anyone really know?

Maybe looking at some will help.  Of course, Snoopy’s “It was a dark and stormy night” is unbeatable.   But consider these:

“Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16-17^th September—a Thursday.” The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie

“Last night I dreamt I was in Manderley again.” Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

“Patsy sat by herself at the beginning of the evening, eating a melted chocolate bar.”   Moving On, by Larry McMurtry

“They’re out there.”  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey

“I am ninety.”   Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen

“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.”   The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

“It was a Sunday morning at the peak of spring.”   The Judgment, by Franz Kafka

“It was a slow Sunday afternoon, the kind Walden loved.”   The Man from St. Petersburg, by Ken Follett

These opening lines are by iconic fiction writers.  And, in a way, each sets a tone and presents key information. But, honestly, if you didn’t know where these sentences came from, would you think they were anything special?  Please.  “It was a slow Sunday afternoon…”?  Or, “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning…”?

No, to me, the important thing isn’t the opening sentence; it’s all the sentences that follow it.  Without a compelling story and appealing characters, these opening lines, even though by such distinguished authors, would be just—well, sentences.

So here’s the deal, or my theory of the deal:  These authors didn’t worry about the opening sentence; they just started telling their stories.  Even if those stories started in the middle or flashed back from the end, they had to start somewhere.  Maybe by indicating time and place; maybe by introducing a character.  Or revealing a thought.  Or presenting a fact.  Whatever started the telling made the first sentence.  Just as whatever concluded the story made the last.

Mickey Spillane supposedly said that the beginning sells the novel and the end sells the next one.  But that gives the first and last lines a lot of responsibility, causes lots of pressure.  For me, the advice of my wise third grade teacher works just fine and doesn’t cause as much anxiety.  Mrs. Kellen told her class, “The best way to start is to start.”

So that’s what I do.  No perfect first sentence involved.  No need for fancy phrasing or affected action.  I just start.

So far, that’s worked pretty well for writing.  I imagine it would also work for picking up Hot Strangers in a bar.  If you try it, let me know?

Merry Jones is the author of the Zoe Hayes mysteries, including The Nanny Murders, The River Killings, The Deadly Neighbors, The Borrowed and Blue Murders, as well as non-fiction, including Birthmothers, and humor, including I Love Him, But… and If She Weren’t My Best Friend, I’d Kill Her.

An Extra! Extra! Feature

Yesterday I completed my 9^th novel (DUST & DECAY, to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2011) and today I started writing my 10^th (DEAD OF NIGHT, St. Martins Griffin, June 2011).  That’s nine-plus novels since 2005, with more sold and as yet unwritten.  I love writing novels and I can’t imagine ever getting tired of it…but I have friends and colleagues who have written a dozen or two dozen or many dozens of novels.  So…I asked some of them how they stay enthused and how they keep it fresh.

Joining us today are Sandra Brown, Wendy Corsi Staub, Tess Gerritsen, Gayle Lynds, Douglas Preseton, David Hewson, James Rollins, Jack Ketchum, John Connolly, Jeff Abbott, and F. Paul Wilson

SANDRA BROWN: I think staleness is a consequence of the writer’s boredom with what he/she is writing. The first reader I must entertain is myself.  If I’m not intrigued by the plot, if I don’t care what’s going to happen next, if I’m indifferent to a character who is a complete ninny and, as such, deserves total defeat, then my paying customer will feel the same. So I keep it interesting for myself. And with each book, I try to do something I’ve never done before. I build in an element that will make this story, and the telling of it, new and interesting for me, so that it will be fresh for the reader.

WENDY CORSI STAUB:  The characters keep it fresh, always. We’ve all heard the saying that there are only so many plots, and only so many variations an author can create within those plots. Only when you breathe life into a character who can step into any premise and own it do you come up with something unique.

TESS GERRITSEN: What keeps it fresh?  The material.  Always striving for that chill up the spine.  Even though ICE COLD is my 22nd novel (if you include my early romantic suspense novels) I got just as much a thrill imagining that story as I did with my very first book. I got just as lost in the crisis, just as horrified by the predicament of the characters.  If I can’t feel the emotions my characters are feeling, then the story is a dud.

GAYLE LYNDS:  I’m riveted always by the next book.  I begin thinking about it long before I’m writing.  At this point I have notes to myself for the next three books.  When one loves the work, and doesn’t mind having no sense of comfort that one can pull it off again, it’s just darn addictive.

DOUGLAS PRESTON: What keeps it fresh is when I think of what else I might be doing to make a living. Digging ditches? I sit in my little 8 x 10 shack in the Maine woods and think that this isn’t a bad way to make a living. The truth is, I love writing, I love entering that mysterious quasi-universe that exists in my head and is slowly forming on my computer screen as I write a novel.

DAVID HEWSON: It took me a while to realize this but essentially every book is different. I have an ensemble cast, not a single protagonist. I vary the location, the point of view, the tone, the nature of the book. Some are mysteries. Some are thrillers. Some are just novels. There’s a lot of pressure to write the same thing over and over again and you have to resist it. Otherwise you’ll get bored, and not long after the readers. I can honestly say I feel more enthused about this series now, with the ninth book halfway done, than I did five books ago. Avoiding Conan Doyle syndrome is important for series writers.

JAMES ROLLINS: Some people think I’m crazy writing two books a year (okay, three books this year), but I think that’s a key to staying fresh.  Each of the books is very different.  Once I’m sort of burned out with writing a staccato-paced modern thriller, I get to switch to something entirely new:  a fantasy, a kid’s adventure, a dabble into horror.  Once done with that, I’m ready to return to the modern thriller.  If I had to write thriller after thriller, I think I might burn out.  So the more the merrier is my credo.

JACK KETCHUM:  Doing stuff that’s not the same kind of stuff I did last time.  That, and not doing a damn thing at all for a while.  I like what Robert Mitchum said when asked how come he did so few movies.  He said something to the effect of, “I like to lay off now and then.  That way I’m always the new girl in the whorehouse.”

JOHN CONNOLLY: Well, at least since THE WHITE ROAD, I’ve tended to write every second book out of contract, or just about, which gives me the opportunity to experiment.  NOCTURNES, THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS, THE GATES and, I believe, BAD MEN were all written without a contract or an advance, and I’ve been very fortunate that my publishers have been willing to give me that space, and to publish whatever results from it.  As a consequence, I get to play with new forms, new genres, and different ways of telling a story, all of which feed back into the Parker novels.  In addition, after taking a break from those books I tend to come back to them very refreshed, which I hope is communicated to the reader.  The downside is that perhaps a certain amount of momentum has been lost in terms of gaining readers, as one Parker book doesn’t necessarily follow on from the previous one every year, and that really is the way to become a big bestseller: give the people the same thing every year, but just slightly different.  On the other hand, if I did that I’d go crazy.  I think I’ve achieved a nice balance, but not without making certain sacrifices.

JEFF ABBOTT:  What keeps it fresh?  Never repeating yourself. I mean, every book is a new challenge; it never gets easier. I am always learning something new about writing with every book. I cannot let myself become bored; that would translate into a boring book. So I always, always have to push myself.

F. PAUL WILSON: Fresh, shmesh.  Trying to make each book at least as good as, if not better than, the last is an ongoing challenge that keeps you sharp. I can see, however, how a series could become a chore.  I sidestepped that with Repairman Jack by deciding from the start that it would be a closed-end series – I would not run Jack into the ground.  The stories would loop out from The Tomb and end at Nightworld.  I’m just starting the 15^th and last novel in the series and I’m as psyched as ever.

The truth is, I can’t imagine not writing.  Yes, it’s work, and it’s frustrating at times, but so is anything worth doing.  For me, writing is an obsessive-compulsive disorder.  If I won $80 million in the lottery today, you know what I’d be doing the very next morning?  Well, I’d be in a CCU recovering from the heart attack winning caused me.  But as soon as I got out, I’d be writing.

New York Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry is a multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author and Marvel Comics writer. His many novels include PATIENT ZERO and THE DRAGON FACTORY (in development for TV), THE WOLFMAN, and ROT & RUIN.  He also has the dubious distinction of being a co-founder of the Liars Club.

Burning Question: How do you deal with rejection?

“Dear Gentlebeing

Thank you for submitting ‘Spock Meshugenah’ to Amazing Loonie Stories.  While we did not find this story fit our needs, we hope you will think of us when you write your next masterpiece. No, really.  The Editors”

Okay, here’s how it is out there.  A magazine like Amazing Loonie Stories gets something like 200 to 300 submissions a week. You’re one of them.  Next week they’ll get 300 more and odds are you won’t be one of them, unless you’re incredibly prolific and are writing a story every five minutes (in which case I suspect I know what’s wrong with your stories already).

Ways to make that story shine above the other 299 is a topic for another day. The point here is, the odds of you not being rejected are very much like those of you winning at roulette.  You are going to be rejected.

More correctly stated, your story is going to be rejected. Why? Who knows? Maybe you haven’t really created viable characters. Maybe your premise is shaky. Maybe your idea of science fiction is what you’ve seen on TV or in the movies (certainly, if the story’s called “Spock Meshugenah”) and you don’t actually know the genre, haven’t even read The Martian Chronicles, never mind Charles Stross or The Windup Girl, and so you’re unknowingly penning outdated, hackneyed story ideas.

None of these things is an impossibility to overcome. You can learn and improve upon all of these things–mostly by writing more and reading more–either about how to write characters or more fiction of the kind you think you want to write.  Rejection is about this story at this moment in time.  It might not even be about your story. It could be the editor just bought something like it, so can’t take another story about autistic vampire robots from Jupiter (seriously, please don’t write that idea), or you haven’t bothered to read the magazine at all, and it’s really a magazine of stories about telescopes trained on the moon.  Again, the problem is solved by reading–in this case, reading the markets you want to pitch to.

In every case, rejection is not a personal attack on you. Okay, I’ve heard of one rejection slip to an author that read “If I had to choose between buying your story and shooting my mother, it would be a bad day for mom.”  That’s personal. If you got that rejection, then it’s personal.  Otherwise, no.  The most a rejection slip is telling you is “Your story isn’t ready.”  The least it’s telling you is “This didn’t do anything for us.”  If you quit because you got rejected, then you really didn’t want this very much.  “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, sitting in the garden eating worms” is not a viable response to rejection.  Yes, no one likes having their contribution turned down.  But those who are in print now while you aren’t had to charge through the same gauntlet of rejection to get into print.

So deal with rejection however you have to.  The healthiest form of rejection coping I ever saw was my teacher many years ago, T.C. Boyle, who had taken his rejection slips from Esquire and Playboy and many other large, well-paying fiction markets (most of them gone now), and had made a collage out of them, framed it and hung it on the wall:  Rejection as a thing you look at. That’s healthy.

Here’s one solution for you. Before you send your story anywhere, pick a minimum of five markets for it.  You can pick more, but no less–and these had better be markets you’ve checked, read, established print stories like yours. The list should start with the highest paying market and go down the scale.  Once you have your list, then start submitting. If the story is rejected, cross that market off and send it to the next on your list. Rinse and repeat until you’ve run out of markets or it’s sold.  If you go through your entire list there, and the story’s been rejected, probably that says your story is not ready yet. Now it’s time to reconsider it.  Revise or set it aside. You should have been writing more stories anyway, while this one was out.  If you write a story and then wait for it to sell before you write the next one, you are doing this wrong.  Cut it out.

Rejection is part of the game. Accept that now and the rest will be easier.

Gregory Frost is the author of well over fifty published short stories. He spent six years writing them and being soundly rejected before his first one found its way into print. His latest stories are appearing in the anthologies Clockwork Phoenix 3 and The Beastly Bride.

Today’s burning question is How Do You Deal With Rejection?

There are many ways to deal with the emotional pangs of rejection — hug your dog, drink yourself stupid, kill a random stranger – all valid responses and helpful in their own way. But there are also tactics to help prevent the worst of the pain. The first is what I call The Diversion of Delusion (or Optimizing Your Optimism). It is important at all times to have more than one submission out there, especially during the first wave of submitting, when you are sending out a lot of submissions. If you are sending them out in batches, send your next batch out while you still have one or two queries out there. Then, when a rejection comes in, you can immediately say to yourself, “Yeah, well screw them; I’d rather have this other agency, anyway”; redirecting your hopes to a shiny new prospect makes the pain from that #@%$ other one a lot easier to take.

Hopefully, though, there comes a time when an agent asks for your entire manuscript, and they will usually ask for exclusivity. So much for Diversion of Delusion; exclusivity means there are no other submissions on which to focus. Making matters worse is that you now have an honest-to-god, legitimate prospect. You raise your hopes and lower your defenses. By this point you have probably gotten used to the stacks of rejections from the cold queries you have sent out, but this is different. This rejection, if it comes, doesn’t just sting, it hurts bad. And now you don’t even have another submission out there. So now what?

Now you take what you have, you focus on the positive, and you move on. If you got past a query and fifty pages and an agent has asked for your complete manuscript (Is that second base?), you definitely have something going on. And if the agent says nice things about your manuscript before getting to “But” (as in “But while I greatly enjoyed it, I did not love it enough to represent it with the enthusiasm that is necessary to…”) take those nice things to heart. You earned them with your writing, and they are for real.

Here’s the thing: Your mother will say nice things about your writing no matter how bad it is (well, not all mothers…). Your friends will tell you it is great no matter what. But a prospective agent who is rejecting you? They don’t care, nor should they. If they hated it, they probably wouldn’t tell you, they would just send a form letter, or nothing at all. (Form letters can also mean they didn’t actually read it, or that they are just very busy, so come in off those ledges all you form-rejection-recipients.) But if they take the time to say something nice, they mean it. And that counts. So you take each little scrap of positive reinforcement, and you sock it away until you need it.

Hopefully, at some point, you will get your agent and publish your book, and then you will be able to boast about how many rejections you got before your success. And as a side benefit, all that rejection will have thickened your skin enough so that you can take it in stride when you find yourself sitting in an empty bookstore behind a stack of your unsold books, and the only time anyone even speaks to you is to ask where the bathroom is, or even worse, where the Stephanie Meyer books are.

And if that still hurts, well there’s always plenty of random strangers around…

Jon McGoran writes gritty and humorous thrillers under the pen name of D.H. Dublin.  His titles include Freezer Burn, Body Trace and Blood Poison, all published by Berkley.

RED HOT NEWS….

Our own Liars Club member Sara Shepard has officially hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list with her Pretty Little Liars series!!!!!

To say that we Liars are not unbelievably proud of her would be an out and out lie.

Congrats to Sara, and we wish her many weeks reigning at the top of the heap.  No lie!

Ah, rejection.  It comes in so many shapes and sizes.

“Doesn’t fit our current needs…”
“Thanks…we’ll call…”
“Thank you…next,” which is very often shortened to the economical, “NEXT!”
“We’ve chosen to go with another option.”
“No.”
“Please go.”
“Not at this time.”
“In your dreams.”
And my personal favorite, “No, I just want to be friends.”

Any creative artist that tells you they’ve never had to handle rejection is either lying, deluded, under the influence of a mind-altering substance, or simply hasn’t put their work out there to be seen.  The simple answer to avoiding rejection is to never submit your work.  Curiously enough, this is also the simple answer for avoiding success.  In this business, rejection and success go hand in hand.

A few years ago, I submitted a couple of chapters of a YA novel to a friend’s agent.  She got back to me fairly quickly and let me know that my work wasn’t the type she sold.  I was devastated until my friend was good enough to point out that she had written in her reply that my writing was “fabulous.”  By focusing on the sting of the rejection, I had completely missed her positive observations about my work.  It took me back to an experience I had much earlier in my career.

As a young actor, I sat and waited at an audition.  I watched as each actor came out and answered the inevitable question “How’d it go?”  I watched a bunch of actors answer either “I think I got the job,” or “I didn’t get the job,” and walk out in clouds of powerless insecurity.  Finally, an actor came out and said, “I think I did pretty well.  I had them laughing and they liked my work,” and he walked out with a smile on his face.  He was in control of his part of the process and clearly felt empowered and secure.  My guess was rejection wouldn’t change that feeling for him.

I always try to focus on making my pitch or submission so good that I enjoy putting it out there.  By doing this, I take away rejection’s ability to make me feel powerless in my own career.  I walk away from the pitch or submission looking forward to the next one.  Rejection can still sting.  It would’ve been nice if the agent thought my work was fabulous and could sell it.  Still, good work is good work and if I submit something else to her, I bet she’ll read it.

Keith Strunk is the author of Prallsville Mills and Stockton of the Arcadia Publishing Images of America Series.  He is co-founder of River Union Stage, a professional Equity theater based in Frenchtown, NJ.

Burning Question: How do you deal with rejection?

Maybe it’s just this heat wave, but it seems to me that for a writer, rejection is kind of like watermelon seeds:  Impossible to avoid, but worth getting around for the sweetness found in the task.

sit down. you're not gonna like this.

In other words:  you’d better toughen up your sissy self and get used to running into them, and spitting ‘em out.  Rejection is part and parcel of the business, and if you have trouble hearing no, or problems accepting criticism, or difficulty with authority, you are going to be one of those writers who drinks too much and writes too little.

John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by 30 publishers.  JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series was rejected by a dozen publishers.  Lionel Shriver’s Orange Prize Winning Novel, “We Need To Talk About Kevin” was repeatedly rejected as being too dark – and she was an established, award winning writer.

And it doesn’t stop there.  Once you’re published, you get to endure the rounds of Hollywood stars, directors, and producers rejecting your material for the screen.  Mel Gibson was alleged to be interested in my novel, Standing Still, as a vehicle for his friend Nicole Kidman, but ultimately he walked away and decided it would be more fun to direct his girlfriend over the phone.  Sigh.

In other words, in the beginning, you have to man up. You have to decide which criticism to listen to, and which to ignore.  You have to stay strong until you’ve gotten a fistful of rejections.  Then, I recommend you have a combination hissy fit/pity party.  Scream, throw things, lay in bed all day feeling sorry for yourself.  Sob hourly.

Then get your butt up, put it in a chair, and write something better.

Kelly Simmons is the author of Standing Still (Simon & Schuster) and coming in February, The Bird House. www.bykellysimmons.com Kelly’s post is part of an ongoing series in which Liars each chime in on a burning question about publishing.