Between rejections and trends and opportunities we never see (and people who started the publishing game before us) it’s hard not to be jealous. And really, why bother? Jealousy is a valid emotion, as much as depression or elation and let’s face it, none of us is perfect. So it’s okay to feel frustrated or depressed or even jealous. What you can’t do is let these feeling override your professionalism.

First that’s because they very often go hand in hand. Many times jealousy sparks because right when you’re facing a new batch of rejections someone else posts on their Facebook or blog or Twitter about their latest sale. While you struggle to get full reads and get noticed by editors at the big wigs of genre publishing someone else is boasting hundreds of credits. But jealousy is as much genuine jealousy as a new face of frustration and self-doubt. Its always helpful to step back and ask why you’re jealous because it could just be that you’re overwhelmed and frustrated with your own career.

Second there’s also a HUGE chance that there is nothing to be jealous about. This is a twofold point because sometimes you need to remind yourself that just because someone’s sale LOOKS effortless doesn’t mean it is. I know a few authors like this that simply don’t talk about how hard it was to get published. One bestseller I know spent over ten years trying to sell, and had to deal with a completely horrible agent experience (hmm, come to think of it I know many authors who could tell this tale) before they ended up with a contract. Just because you don’t see them doing blogs online about how hard it is doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard (see my What They Don’t Tell You About Writing post for an idea on how things change after people think you’ve “made it”). Point is, it looks effortless when you see the product and not all the work behind it. And just because someone lands a sale doesn’t mean they haven’t worked every bit as hard as you have for it.

The second side of this one starts similar; don’t be jealous because you don’t know the full story of the sale. But it continues with the knowledge that presses close all the time. And projects bomb all the time. And there is a massive pile of really low quality magazines and anthos out there. I won’t name names (and the sad fact is that the lower the pay scale the more likely it is that these projects will end up filled with stinker stories. In my last post Maurice Broaddus, editor of the acclaimed Dark Faith mentioned that for every 100 stories about 2 were good. High paying markets attract crap fiction and good fiction, a lot of both. Lower paying markets tend to attract less of the good stuff. Not that they don’t attract any, just there are fewer good stories proportionately.) but I will give you possibly the best piece of advice I’ve ever learned writing: It is better (career-wise) to be rejected than to be published poorly. Rejections do not hurt anywhere as bad as being embarrassed of your fiction or the company it keeps.

So take into consideration where these sales are coming from, what they’re doing for their authors–if anything. A lot of people see some measure of success and end up spending some times spinning their wheels at a level they’re comfortable with and have seen some success with. It’s hard to decide whether to aim for something you might not reach, or go for the sure thing, but if you want to advance, you have to always aim for higher than where you are.

Furthermore writing careers are not set advancement paths. Writers and careers do not mature at the same pace or time. I know several artist types who put in a lot of work, then were forced to take a break, then came back to some success. Some hit big with their first book, some with their fifth. Tor’s (well-deserved for being so awesome) darling Cherie Priest published six novels before hitting it bigger with Boneshaker. Clearly some readers and publishers saw her skill and continued to buy her work until the rest of the world caught on last year. And it happens like that all the time. The fiction force that is Charlaine Harris had two whole series before the Sookie Stackhouse hit real big.

Careers take different paths, influenced by things completely outside of the realm of a writer’s control. One more example from my own favorite genre; There’s no doubt that Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake books contributed to the rise of urban fantasy. But Hamilton and Blake can’t be given credit alone for the popularity of the genre because the series was joined quickly by a number of other really good authors, some of which only copied Hamilton’s work, or outclassed it completely, or connected with readers looking for something different. You can’t separate Hamilton’s career from the rise of urban fantasy, but neither can you give it all the credit.

The truth is that the only thing your career can be compared to is your goals. Those are the only standard that matter.

So next time you feel jealous take a step back, rant to a friend who won’t repeat what you say, then look at what’s making you jealous again, because you might see something new. Or you might be able to reshape your own reactions so that every sale of a friend is a triumph you can share in. Life is more fun when there are more triumphs and celebrations rather than crushing blows. How you take the sales of the writers around is one way to make your writing career smoother, easier to handle, and more satisfying.

One more thing that makes having a writing career hard is the flexibility of the roles. The fellow writer you’re drinking screwdrivers with and gossiping to tonight might just be putting out a call for submissions for an anthology or landing a job editing for a magazine tomorrow. Unlike many other fields there’s a lot of flexibility in publishing as editors become agents, or writers become editors or publishers themselves. The relationship is especially more fluid in the small presses and genres and it can, obviously, be VERY hard to deal with. This snake’ll bite you in the ass y’all.

It’s impossible to wear a single “hat” (though I hate that analogy, it’s largely understandable) and not piss people off with so many egos involved, much less someone who you meet as a writer, but you also know works as an editor. On the editor side people will expect you to invite them into your project just because they’ve been friendly to you. People will expect a nudge up in the slush, if not a guaranteed place. And as an editor you can’t help thinking every time you meet a writer that this is what they want from you. (Also common, the “Hey look at where all the stories you rejected got published” method and the “You’ll be sorry when I hit it big” folks. FYI: No agent or editor is going to regret passing on your work because you hit it big later. They’re in this for the love, the passion and for the individual project too. They have to accept the possibility of passing on a JK Rowling because they don’t believe in the story just like writers must accept rejection as part of the process.)

On the writing side of things you expect people who know you, who you’ve helped and promoted and loved to give you that chance. The thing is, sometimes they can’t. If you don’t know why, look back at my post Monday on rejection. It does hurt when an editor says they liked your work, but they don’t invite you into an antho. But they are NOT under any obligation to invite you. Hell, I can’t stand Stephen King’s style and if I was editing an antho and the King offered me a story for it I’d be under no obligation to accept it.

An invitation to submit is like a letter of interest. “I’ve read your work and am interested in working with you on this project.” That’s it. The idea that certain people should have been invited, or worse, guaranteed a place, just because they have a recognizable name (potentially) is ridiculous. Bashing the editors and saying there are personal reasons there instead of taste is deplorable–even if it might be true.

I’ve had the “be careful what you review because the people you’re criticizing now might be your peers later” conversation quite a few times. Some people I know have chosen to give up reviewing once they could write full time to avoid conflict. I’ve feared that someday I might be faced with the same choice. The fact is that I review in part because it encourages me to read, widely, and to think about what I’ve read. I want to remember that I’m a reader first, and a writer second. At this time it’s a risk I’m willing to continue to take. (Besides, if Charlaine Harris can still post the occasional review, why can’t I?)

Would it hurt if someone refused to accept my work because I’d given them a review they didn’t like? Well yeah. That could be the point. Sure people exclude others and reject people at times just to hurt them. But that’s childish and petty and those who do that are sooner or later figured out because they do that to everyone. Not to mention I wouldn’t want to put my work in the hands of someone who would do that in the first place. But it could also happen because the editor recognizes that we don’t have the same vision for a story, or a theme, or a genre, and decides to spend their time working with someone else.

And in the end, does it matter? Do you really want to force yourself where you aren’t welcome? Can anything good come of you demanding to be included?

Books, anthologies, magazines, there are invite only projects all the time. It saves the editor time, allows them to more tightly focus the book toward their vision. The best projects, in my opinion, are part invite and part open call. But not everyone thinks so. I fail to see how throwing a fit (and flinging accusations) online or even just in private makes anything better. If anything you just make it perfectly clear to a wider audience why the editor didn’t want to work with you in the first place.

I have been lucky to have been invited to a few (5 or 6) anthologies. I have made it into exactly one. Invitations aren’t guarantees of acceptance either. In the end no one owes you an invite, or an acceptance. That’s the hard truth of turning art into commerce based on subjective taste. If you can’t take the fact that there are invite only anthos being put together all the time in this field then reconsider sticking around. It’s hard enough without your meltdowns and mudslinging. And furthermore there are MORE markets open to general submissions and many of them (Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Fantasy, Apex, Tor…oh hell, just go to duotrope or ralan and look it up for yourself) are nothing to scoff at.

And of course, good luck!

Last week a Twitter friend of mine who edits a zine discovered a person he’d bought several stories from–for 1st English rights–had blatantly lied to him about those rights being available. The submitter had sent the editor stories that had already been published–multiple times–and said they were unpublished. This launched a discussion about professionalism in writing, of which this submitter clearly had none. Rights can be a tricky business (one of the reasons authors get agents). When you are agentless you have to navigate this on your own, but most markets understand this and are pretty upfront about what they ask for. No reprints means they want a story that has never been published before. So if your story has already appeared in a magazine, much less multiple magazines, it’s clearly a reprint and submitting it as original is very, very unprofessional.

Then, as these things go, someone pointed out that the zine in question only pay $10 for stories and said something along the lines of “if you want people to treat you professionally pay professional rates”. And in the comments of that little spin off convo someone else mentioned that writers should be happy for anything they get for their fiction, even a pat on the back.

All three of these things could be separate rants, but they came out together (and the last two often appear together) so together I’m keeping them. Which brings me back to this little rant’s title: Why do you write?

There’s lots of reasons to write, and lots of seemingly pretentious reasons people give (let’s face it “I write because I have to” sounds pretentious. It’s not, and any artist will immediately understand, and they probably wouldn’t have asked you why in the first place. But to a non-artist it’s not really understood.) But let’s focus on the two reasons that come down to money matters; writing for hobby and writing for career.

Let me first note that in either one professionalism should not come into question. You might not be trying to build a career in writing, but others might be, including the editors and publishers you might be dealing with.  You still need to respect guidelines, be courteous to others, even if you never meet them face to face, and always send in your best work.

To a hobbyist writer it’s about writing, or being part of genre fandom. It’s about putting words on a page, having them make sense and be entertaining, and the pleasure of seeing your byline in print. And let me tell you an obvious secret, we’re all hobbyists at heart. Writers who don’t write for the pleasure of it, for the fun of it, for the moment we get our contributor copies or a kind word from a reader, don’t stay writers for long. This passion is what makes it possible to send out our work after rejection and get past that point in a project where we’re convinced it’s all utter shit and should be burned as to not infect other people’s projects. (Even Neil Gaiman, writer superstar, feels this way, so who are we mere mortals to be different?)

But at some point some of us decide we want more. We want to do this professionally. We want a career in writing, knowing how hard it is, and knowing that it will probably be a second or even third job. A career is different than a hobby because there writing is not its own reward, advancement is. Success is the reward. Success is defined in many ways. Money, more contracts, audience recognition, awards, professional reputation…it’s these things that make a career. It’s the hobby bits that make it a satisfying career. But choosing to build a career brings other goals into mind. Writing is no longer the end goal, but publishing well, building an audience and a name become just as important as writing those words. (Luckily good words help in the whole getting published and building an audience thing.)

The zine in question, again which only pays $10 a story has been fired at for not being professional itself. That depends on how you define professional. The editor has every right to expect others to hold up their end of the contract, as he is expected to hold up his. Submitters know how much they pay, and if they don’t like that they shouldn’t submit. Writers who can reliably get semi pro or pro rates for their work have no real reason to accept $10 for first rights to a story, neither do they have any obligation to submit. It would be nice if all markets paid pro or even at least semi pro rates. But that’s not the purpose of all magazines. Not all magazines want to get to the level of Asimov’s. For some it’s just about being entry level, being part of the genre. And let’s face it getting to the level where you have to think about business things (advertisers, tax forms, growing your market) can take a hell of a lot of the enjoyment out of things.

I don’t blame people for not wanting to strip away those things from something they do for the love of it. It’s not easy to turn a hobby into a career. Emotionally it can be absolutely devastating. The fact is that most people never make it when you have to make it about business rather than enjoyment.

There’s nothing wrong with being a hobbyist, as a market or as a writer. In a way I sort of envy those who don’t have to worry about, for example, what being more successful will mean for their taxes. In high school I took a journalism class and was crushed to realize that most of the work in putting out a paper is getting ads. I wanted to be a writer, not an ad seller. Choosing why you’re writing is essential because you’re defining what it is that you want to get our of writing.

Now, the idea that writers should be happy with whatever they get, even if it’s only a pat on the back is utterly ridiculous. As in every profession AND hobby, writers have the right to demand a certain price for their work. If a hobbyist baker makes you a wedding cake you can expect it to cost less than a professional bakery, but expecting it to be made for a pat on the back is outright silly. No one would expect a hobbyist carpenter to work for free, or a hobbyist leatherworker, or even a hobbyist musician. At conventions and fairs and online you see people who make a few extra bucks doing something they love and when you’re looking down at handmade jewelry, even if you know the person will be at their “real job” as a bank teller tomorrow morning, it never occurs to you that they should just give you their jewelry because you like it. So why do we expect even a hobbyist writer to submit to that?

There’s nothing wrong with a hobbyist market or with writing for fun, with profit being a cherry on the top. But there is something wrong with devaluing a person’s time, effort and WORK making it only worth what crumbs of appreciation people can be bothered to toss at the maker. If a writer sets a low price for their work in exchange for better odds at getting published or less work required, that’s their choice. But demanding that all workers accept a certain level of pay, or that all markets give a certain level of pay misses the point for which these markets and writers work.

Finally, tossing out accusations of elitism and snobbery to those who are working toward different goals and demand a different pay scale in turn is no better than those who are dismissing low pay markets as scum. No, token pay markets aren’t going to get you noticed by big editors or get you a big publishing deal. But sometimes all you want out of something is encouragement to keep going.

You have to know why it is that your write, what your goal is when you send out that story, what you want from your words. Once you decide that then you take the path that’s right for you, not the one that everyone else says you should take.

This kicks off a week of writing-related posts. Rejected, how could I not make this about writing? Here’s my picture:

You hear a lot about rejection from newbie and aspiring writers because to them it’s a big deal. There is no way to completely divide your emotions from your work. Yet the world demands that we suddenly stop caring about our work once we submit it. We can’t help thinking about how we’re going to spend that money or how good it will feel to have that credit, to see your name in print whether for the first time, or again. And we believe in our story with that shaky belief that we think it’s as good as the stuff we’ve read, so hopefully the editor will too.

So rejections are crushing, because we only see it from our side, from the point of view of what that sale would mean to us.

Now I’m going to ask you to see it from the other side with a nifty little analogy. Let’s say you have a fierce craving for a sweet snack, so you head out to the grocery store to pick something up. Now “sweet snack” does narrow what you’re looking for down some. You know you can skip the meat isle and the condiment aisle, and the cleaning supply and pet food aisles. But it’s still really vague when you get to the store. I mean, there’s candy, or fruit, or yogurt, or even breakfast cereal or granola bars, ice cream or bottles of juice.

So you browse, because you had narrowed what you were looking for, but there’s just so much in the slush pile I mean, grocery store. Something you know right off aren’t right for you. I don’t like nuts in my ice cream, and most candy makes me sick to my stomach after more than a “fun sized” portion. I can toss out anything the store has priced too high (though that part of the analogy doesn’t apply to markets, who usually put their pay rates out front and center), or that looks sketchy, is in packages too big, or that I know I won’t enjoy again later (let’s face it most packages and stories both should be good for multiple servings).

I still have way more options than I could possibly buy. And yeah, I don’t have to just buy one thing, but I can’t buy it all. The idea, when you’re on the end putting out the money–even if it isn’t your own–of feeling obligated to buy or guilty for not buying everything that fits the description of what they’re looking for is just silly. You don’t feel guilty when you grab the Oreos and not all the cookies on the shelf. You can’t. (Although, let’s face it there are some commercials and such that do operate on guilt and pressure.) And you certainly don’t feel guilty if you pass a nice thick T-bone that looks delicious, but doesn’t suit the purpose of your shopping trip. No matter how awesome it looks, it’s just not a sweet snack.

Yes, we start out with out hearts on our pages, desperately wanting that validation that we’re not wasting our time writing. But there comes a point where it just clicks and rejections are just like a consumer passing you up in your nifty packaging on the grocery shelf for something they want more. It doesn’t stop being a bit of a bummer, because you submit to places you want to be published by. But it’s not just not personal. It’s not just “a part of the game”.

Rejections usually mean nothing other than “Not this market at this time”. They don’t mean “This is shit” or “You suck” and lots of big magazine and major projects give form rejections. Notes and rewrite requests are a nice little bonus, but it’s not something everyone has time for. (Heck, sending rejections period isn’t something all markets or agents have the time for. Two books of mine queried two years apart showed a massive difference in nonresponses, even among agents who claim to answer every email on their website. And yes I sent follow up emails as well, which also went very unanswered.)

Rejections are nothing because they do not define your work, and unlike the snacks on the shelf your story isn’t going to go bad. A little spit shine can freshen up a story that’s been sitting around, even after years. Your product is done, and shelf stable, and even if no one wants to buy it now, a few years will change everything. Even if you aren’t in higher demand, tastes and markets change too.

Rejection is part of writing, part of life. Under the dazzling, squee-worthy strength of even one or two sales the rejections mean nothing but “Try again”.

But instead I’m going to tell you about my absolute adoration for horses and horseback riding.

If you read my blog on the books I read as a teen you can probably guess that I’ve always loved horses. As a child I snapped up every picture that was horse related (and really only loved unicorns because they were more magical, and usually smarter, horses) and I read every horse themed book I could find, including a few from the library that were almost twice as old as I was. If it had a horse on it, I wanted it. If it had a horse in it I read it.

Then one day, in my early teens I got tired of fantasizing. I wanted to really ride, to really be around horses. I found a local barn that worked out of a city park, that was not-expensive and asked for a trail ride for my birthday. Once I was there I noticed a handful of teen girls running around helping out. So I asked how I could get the job. The rules were: You had to be 13 (which I had just turned!) and you had to work for free. But you got to spend a lot of time around horses, and got to ride for at least half an hour a day for free. So I started working weekends at the barn.

And I LOVED it.

Then came the incident. I was targeted for bullying a few months in. I ignored a lot of it, and admittedly I was a teenage girl, so I made my fair share of bad decisions as well. But one day when we were lining the horses up for the paying customers one of the people who was bullying me pulled a horse with the very bad habit of kicking when others got too close to her between the horse I was holding and the horse in front of me. The mare lashed out rather spectacularly and if the gelding I was holding hadn’t yanked me back I would have been kicked in the head. (One of the good things about writing is that your manuscript will never kick you in the head, or rear up and flip over on you. The chances of it happening with a horse is low, but it can happen.) Now the girl did get in serious trouble (a 2 week ban from the barn) but when she came back it was a significantly larger chip on her shoulder and dealing with animals that weigh hundreds of pounds, I just didn’t feel safe. So I made the very sad decision to not go back.

Broke my heart. My dream died a little bit. But it didn’t go away. A year or so later I heard a new barn had opened up, that ran in close to the same way in a different park. So same, this is what I want for my birthday, oh by the way, do you need volunteers? Why yes, they did! They were completely without volunteers and I had experience!

Awesome! So began my longer stint in horsing. This one lasted about two years. It was all kinds of fun in the way that the other ones weren’t. In the winter, when the barn closed to the public the horses still need exercising and I got to help. And that summer I was hired (as in actually got paid!) to clean stalls and assist with the summer camps. Unfortunately they also brought in a trail lead who took a disliking to me, and so there was some bullying/clique-behavior again. but this time fucking no one was going to take my dream away from me. I wan’t going to leave until they told me to my face “We don’t want you here”.

Except then all the other volunteers bought horses. And my dad had lost his job and I’d given most of the money I made that summer to him. So it was pretty clear that they lived a life of dashing down to the barn to ride for a few hours before going off to school, and I didn’t. I didn’t have the family support a teen needed for horse ownership, or riding lessons, so if I was going to act on that dream I needed to be able to afford it and drive there, myself.

So a lot happened after that in my life. And at times I literally ache to brush a horse or lift tack, or rake hay out of an aisle. but let me tell you something ultimately dream crushing about horses–they’re fucking expensive. To buy, to maintain, to ride, to train, to breed. They cost a lot of money. I started looking into lessons, but there’s two flaws there; they, too, are expensive, and most barns focus very strongly on competing. I’m not interested in competing (and I don’t have the money for the higher level lessons, which start at $45 in the area). I just want to ride (and those lessons are still at the lowest I’ve found $25 for 45 minutes.) The gas costs to get out to barns from m side of town are equally scary. I mean, 20 minutes at least one way, then $25+ for lessons, then time to drive home.

Oh, it won’t stop me. It’ll delay me. It’ll make things harder. It’ll mean I’ll sit here looking at horse pictures on the net and feeling that clench in my chest, feeling so amazingly driven, and yet like the whole world is trying to stop me from pursuing that dream. I watch shows on KET and can almost feel the grit of sweat and dirt, I can almost smell the hay and the leather and the warm dusty scent of the horses themselves.

As an adult I have the freedom of being able to spend money on what I want to, and being able to drive where I want to go. But I also am saddled with the responsibility to put my dreams behind my family’s well being. Sometimes I think the only way I’ll ever be able to ride again (or groom, or hell, even muck stalls) is if I get rich. Other days I’m damned determined not to let the amoun in my bank account stop me.

There are always ways around financial restrictions. But very few things are a dream crushing as discounting a person’s passion, ability and drive just because they don’t have the cash to line the pockets of those who possess the objects of dreams. No, it’s not any barn owner’s job to let me ride just because I want to really, really badly. They have to pay bills too.

But it’s a very sad thing when accomplishing dreams becomes not about ability and skill and fighting against the odds, but only things that the rich and the entitled can do. And it’s a terrible thing when people assume paying for something is the only way you can show you’re serious about you passion. Funny, isn’t it? How that’s the exact same thing rip off editors and self publishers say. “Well if you’re serious about you career you HAVE to pay editors and self publish because that’s the only way to break in.”

Yeah, agents should make more for all the work they do. But not off the backs of writers, especially not when you consider agencies have a stable of writers who they can profit off of, but writers are limited in their number of products. Sadly, I think that writing, and likely agenting as well, are becoming second jobs, rather than something you can do to support yourself. But charging an entry fee for the instructor to even consider giving you a ride, much less a lesson, dismissing those who can’t pay it as not serious about their craft all the while claiming the applicants complaining because you just want to make money is unfair (or worse, profiling, akin to racial profiling) is a bit much.

Writing Riding is hard. It’s already filled with constant demands, hoops to jump through, close calls, near misses, tiny victories and passionate failures. Even if you read all the books, take all the lessons, perform beautifully in the ring you could fail due to chance, subjective moods of the judges, and being outclassed by the competitors. Picking the shows agents to the best of your ability, polishing your performance query, and making sure your horse manuscript is in the best shape that it can be still doesn’t guarantee success. Why make it harder by making riding publishing something only people who have spendable cash floor can even consider doing?

Ultimately, what K.D. James said here is true. Allow me her to summarize:

When I’m ready to sell my product, I’ll enter the market as it exists at that time. Or stay out of the market until it improves. Or find another market. Those are my choices.

But hey, this is my blog, and I’ll rant if I want to. (Also I’m ranting after working for the day, while preparing dinner.)