I don't know enough about your A.C. to comment specifically, with regard to Kristin's posting. She had another rant, a month or so back, that threw me into the Slough of Despond. She wrote about how the market for chicklit was dead, dead, dead.

Great.

And what am I supposed to do with GIRL'S GUIDE in October?!?

Grain of salt. Take everything with one giant grain o' salt.

And finish your novel. You learn more from writing the last fifty pages than you learn from any other part than, maybe, the first five pages.

One of the ugly truth's I've discovered about the writing business is that agents and editors spend a lot of energy and time discouraging writers. This is not sour grapes on my part, it is a truth garnered from what I've seen them say and do and admit to (usually when drunk).

If you go to a couple of conventions and listen- actually listen- these people, you will discover that the number one thing they hate is that every day they have a huge stack of manuscripts to read. Did I say read? I meant to judge. They refuse to read.

Again, this is not sour grapes, this is what I've observed, and what they have admitted. The publishing business has become a culture of anti-literacy. 'Reading' is shit-work. It is for interns and newbies and 'readers'.

So, they actively discourage people from submitting- they snark and they snap and they talk-down, and they rave about tired old things like 'His Majesties' Dragon' to discourage writers from submitting. Remember- the goal is to reduce the stack of manuscripts on their desks.

The other thing to remember about this is (and I read this in last month's Writer's Digest) that Noami Novik spent her college years in the publishing industry, where she connected with a high-powered agent, who pushed her book. It wasn't because somebody picked it up off the slush pile and saw gold- it was because she was able to talk to an agent about it (talk, not read, they won't read if they can help it).

So, don't feel bad. My opinion is that nothing you and I write, no matter how good, is ever going to be read by anyone worthwhile until we've invested enough face-to-face time with them to get over their anti-literacy bias.

It isn't what you write, it's who you know.

What this agent is saying is true, in a certain respect. I mean, of course she wants to be wowed, and accomplishing that will definitely make your way to publication easier. However, I will point out that she says,

"What creates originality is taking a concept that is done to death (because there are no new stories under the sun) and envisioning and creating a whole new possibility that reinvents the known fantasy world. As a reader, it makes you gasp with a wow, what a brilliant idea. Why has no one thought of that before?"

Can she honestly say this describes everything that's being published these days, even by new authors? I mean, come on. Besides, being "fresh and original" in the way she's talking about will give you an edge in getting a request for a partial or full, but at what cost? A lot of this stuff boils down to gimmicks, and I think it's dangerous to try for those. Anyway, the market fluctuates, changes, and what's passé right now will become popular again after a lull (though some lulls are longer than others). Especially when a novel has taken a long time to write, you can't anticipate all possible directions the market might turn in. Just write what sings to you, and deal with finding an agent or editor when you get to that point. Who knows? The market may have changed again by then. *shrug*

Thanks everyone. (*marks day in her calendar since she rarely gets even ONE comment on her silly entries . . . much less 3*)

As I said, a lot of my reaction was timing. Would it have upset me any other time? Probably, yea. But I wouldn't have wanted to drop both my novel and writing in general off the face of a very tall cliff. I'm already recovering.

And, yea, I'll finish it. Alden is my baby -- whether it gets published ot not is not the big point for me at the moment. I'd like it to be, I have readers who will strangle me if I don't try (right, Lenneth?), but it's not the point. So, tally ho, onward and upward, and all that jazz!

The sad thing is it's a Dimas thing, not a novel thing. lol