I’m in the thirteenth month of trying to sell my short fiction collection with no buyer in sight, and I’m officially depressed. When I say depressed, I don’t mean clinically or medically depressed. I mean good, old-fashioned sad and upset.
I have to admit that I’ve been fairly lucky as a writer. From time to time, I’ve been favored by flashes of good fortune, but the possibility of not selling my book is starting to get to me. I’m beginning to question my writing skills. I’m questioning my timing. I feel like my short stories must be too long. I feel demoralized. I’m afraid I’m going to run out of agencies, contests, and publishers to submit to. I check my inbox all the time looking for some sliver of hope. I realize the short fiction market is small, but that’s little consolation. I feel stupid for not having written a novel instead of a short story collection–I mean why didn’t I get a clue? Nobody buys short fiction anymore. I wonder whether I wasted all those nights writing a collection of (I think) thoughtful and well constructed stories that will sit in a drawer (well, not even in a drawer but on an external hard drive) until I die.
I feel stuck between things: on the one side a homeless short story collection and on the other a novel that probably (if I’m good and productive) won’t be finished until 2010. Yep, I’m officially depressed about writing.
So I turn to the awesome After the MFA community. Any thoughts? Anyone feel the same way I do? Any suggestions? How do you deal with the constant flow of rejection? How do you deal with frustration?
Cheers
Armand
Comments 23
Hi and yes, someone out there feels the way you do. I’ve just recently returned to my first bout of ‘serious’ writing since I got my MFA. Since finishing my thesis, I’ve only completed one short story and the stuff I’m submitting is getting the usual generic rejection letters.
What gets me through it is writing new stuff, even if it’s really crappy new stuff. A day where I sit and write five pages of bad prose is a much better day than one in which I write nothing. On days when I get really depressed about not being published, I try to remember that when I started loving to write, I didn’t even think about getting published. I try to go back to that when possible. Sometimes I can Pollyanna out on that until the gloom fades and I can return my focus on writing.
My suggestion is to look to new material if you’re feeling burned out with your old stuff. Good luck and thanks for posting this.
Posted 24 Dec 2007 at 1:27 pm ¶Armand, I hear you. Loud and clear.
Yes, I have similar feelings. And I can’t help feeling frustrated when agents tell me to check back when I have a novel. Do orchestras tell musicians to check back when they’ve learned a new instrument? I just don’t find the processes of writing short stories and writing a novel interchangeable.
Anyone want to start a press for our excellent–if still homeless–story collections?
On a serious note: I think MFA programs need to be very up front about the saleability (or lack thereof) of short stories. That might help some of the folks following in our footsteps to “get a clue,” as you say, a little earlier than we did.
Posted 26 Dec 2007 at 7:33 pm ¶Hey Armand,
Posted 26 Dec 2007 at 10:28 pm ¶As someone who got two rejection slips on the day before Christmas, I feel your pain. I am a newcomer to ATMFA and appreciate being able to share the experience (I live in Sydney and just got my MFA equivalent).
The year before last was a really bad one in terms of rejections for me, and it was then that my partner made a suggestion. “Get a spike,” he said. “And spike all your rejections as they come in. When you get to 100, give yourself a pat on the back and go out and celebrate. You’ve arrived.”
I haven’t got to a hundred yet, and yes, there have been enough acceptances along the way to keep me from losing it completely. But there IS something satisfying about the SPIKE!! Just spiking those mofo’s makes you feel less like a victim and more like a player. Or maybe a pilgrim? I don’t know. And it may not work for everybody. But, personally, watching the column on the spike grow makes me feel in some perverse way like I’m getting somewhere. As in, “with all this horse-s*^&*, there must be a pony!”
On a more practical note, you could take a break from submitting for a while and just write, as someone else suggested, and heal.
I’ve got an unpublished collection, too – it’s about eight years old, though I can’t pretend I’ve been steadily trying to place it. Just been adding new stories to it … Almost every story in the collection has now been published elsewhere, including — and here’s why I’m telling you this — two that were just accepted this year, after 12 and thirteen *years,* respectively, of more-or-less steady submission, to about 60 journals each. Don’t for one moment imagine that I’ve gone cheerfully on for all those years of rejection, turning the other cheek and popping the stories back in the post: I’ve gone through years-long low periods. Getting through periods of dejection like the one you’re in is central to success at being a productive writer; in fact, I’d argue that it’s more important than weathering periods of good fortune. *Any* blighter can believe in his writing when publication comes easy – it’s when nobody seems to want it that writers prove themselves. And yeah, hard as it is, hanging in there should pay off. Even if it doesn’t, writing new stuff while you’re submitting is the key to transcending the pain of rejection. I say this with a certain degree of rue, because I *didn’t* successfully weather the rejection dejection. I keep hoping the old drive to write fiction will resurrect itself, but it’s been years since I was fully committed to it, and I’d say the embers are growing cold. Don’t let that happen to you.
Posted 27 Dec 2007 at 3:39 pm ¶Hi Armand, best wishes with a tough situation.
I suppose you will only get two forms of response to this post: take a break or keep slogging. My preference would be for the first one – relax, put everything away for a while and see what new thoughts come up once you’ve got some energy back. Really, you shouldn’t be an expert on the publishing industry and its tastes – I imagine that isn’t why you started writing in the first place. Keep submitting the collection, but keep yourself in a mental place where you can continue to be creative.
Secondly, maybe depression needs to give way to a healthy dose of self-loathing. Maybe in a fairer world your work would be published, but equally, maybe you also need to get better as a writer (we all do). Who knows what’s right, but it doesn’t do your writing much good for you to feel like a victim. If you are not screaming with delight over the work you’ve done so far, work out ways to write something better. Wouldn’t experiencing a day of writing two pages of that new novel (and knowing it was great stuff) make thoughts about when it will be finished seem less important?
Emerson is a nice person to turn to in times of despair, especially his essay, “Circles”.
Posted 27 Dec 2007 at 6:34 pm ¶I’ve been writing and publishing for a long time, but during the 25 years, there were periods (once as long as four years) where I couldn’t sell a thing. One of the best books I could recommend is one that was given to me when I was similarly dejected. It’s Ralph Keyes’ WRITER’S BOOK OF HOPE. I know a lot of people who swear by this writing book on dealing with rejections. Hope it helps!
Posted 27 Dec 2007 at 10:26 pm ¶OK, I know that the common advice is “keep plugging away”, but I’m more realistic than that. I think that if you chose this career in the first place, then you know the situation. Like any other ‘creative’ career, rejection is part and parcel of the deal. There are a million writers out there, not counting the millions of Chinese writers starting to write in English.
Who ever promised you a rose garden?
You either keep writing because you have to, and you can hack the rejection, or you stop, because you can’t. Period. Talent is part of it. Luck is part of it. Persistence is probably part of it.
But all the talent in the world still might not get you anywhere. Courage is required in this profession. And lots of it.
Best of luck in 2008.
As Zora Neale Hurston once said: “There are years that question, and those that answer.”
Here’s hoping you have one that answers. Put away the short stories, stop checking the inbox, and write a novel for Christ’s sake.
Best,
Posted 01 Jan 2008 at 5:18 am ¶Theresa
Hey there, this is John from BookFox. Just wanted to say that I empathize, since I’m graduating from my MFA program in a couple months with a thesis of short stories, and the prospects for publication are dim, dim, dim. But what I’ve seen from surveying all the short story collections that I’ve read is that you need two things: 1) the collection has to be very tightly themed. 2) all the stories have to be published elsewhere, and (this is crucial) at least one or two of the stories has to be published in a namebrand journal (one of the top thirty or so). That one publication in the namebrand journal will justify all your other stories published in wherever, and publishers will be willing to take a chance on you. Also, I think publishers prefer the longer established, in-print (rather than online) journals, and don’t care whether or not it’s university based.
Write on, man, like everyone says. Got to keep moving, never let the prose (and hopes) ossify. Best of luck.
Posted 01 Jan 2008 at 2:04 pm ¶Here’s hoping 2008 is a better year for you.
I agree with a few of the above posters on two items:
Write something else for a while, get some distance, shift your focus. You can ALWAYS return to the collection (and your marketing efforts) any time. But you might make some discoveries or just have some fun with writing again in the meantime.
Get as many of the stories published in lit journals and/or quality magazines as possible, aiming for one or two in top tier markets. So many people I know whose memoirs, essay or short story collections or even novels have finally gotten published, point to how much those credits helped in getting an agent/editor interested — not to mention how it boosts morale.
Lots of good luck. I’m sure I’ll be out in the same rowboat with you in the not-too-distant future when (if) my essay collection comes together — oops, make that “memoir of linked essays,” as the marketing folks insist.
Posted 02 Jan 2008 at 12:41 am ¶Armand, I’ll offer a blend of advice:
* Don’t stop writing completely or you’ll lose your writing muscle. But remember revision is a form of writing, and focus on placing your stories.
* As you prepare to submit, go over each story very carefully and see if there are opportunities for revision. It may be a good thing that you’ve been trying to place this collection for a while. What are your best stories? Send those to the best places, and only after you know they are perfect. Your second-best stories? Focus on making them more publishable.
* Think about taking a writing class, or joining a workshop. Getting some external feedback might be motivating.
Good luck! I know about that abyss…
Posted 02 Jan 2008 at 7:27 pm ¶Wow- Thanks for all the responses from everyone! I’m going to keep on writing (of course) and hopefully the new year will bring some new fortune.
Armand
Posted 02 Jan 2008 at 10:50 pm ¶I work at a small press in Canada. We don’t publish fiction, but here’s what I’ve found to be universal about the decision (or not) to publish someone’s manuscript: most of the time, it’s not about you. Most of the time, the submission doesn’t fit with our publishing mandate, or we just did a piece on that very same topic, or we can’t get the right funding together, or not enough ad space is sold (a lot of magazines are dictated by a tight ad to editorial ratio), the list goes on. So please do keep submitting that story.
As for collections, from a business standpoint (and publishing is a business above all) the short fiction market is tiny. There are some small presses who do take that chance on story collections, who believe in the artistic merit of the short story, but in terms of sales, publishers know they won’t sell more than a few hundred copies. Seriously. The sales almost never cover the advance (if there is one) or the editorial, printing, and marketing costs. So the decision to publish a short story collection is not made lightly. That’s why having stories previously published in journals matters so much. You’ve proven that you’re worth the financial risk.
Publishers also know that short fiction does occasionally pay off, big time. Look at Alice Munro, who has made a stellar career of publishing short stories, and who never writes novels. And don’t forget Vincent Lam, who’s collection “Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures” won the 2006 Giller Prize (Canada’ top literary award, $40,000). Bloodletting was Lam’s first book!
Posted 04 Jan 2008 at 3:05 pm ¶This is terrible to admit. I used to read a lot of short stories. Now, even when they are given to me, I’m likely to reject reading short story collections in favor of novels (though I’m currently reading Infinite Space, Infinite God which is Catholic Science Fiction — and I’m not Catholic).
Posted 06 Jan 2008 at 9:40 pm ¶Hello. Colleague of the illustrious John Fox above, thought I’d mention my experience. In May 2006, I started studying at USC, concentrating on novels and screenplays but also exploring flash fiction, short stories, and essays. USC’s program emphasizes the publishing/marketplace aspect of writing; moreso than simply offering workshops, our professors encourage submission and treat querying and synopses as part of our study. And when I looked around at the current literary marketplace, I discovered something:
It’s for writers. It’s for publishing.
It’s not for reading and readers. When I talk to people who aren’t writers, they’ve rarely heard of journals writers tend to query. I grew up reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz and Edgar Allan Poe, and I don’t think those writers would find places in most journals. I think King’s Night Shift is one of the greatest short story collections ever, and most of its tales were published in Cavalier, which I believe no longer exists.
My personal solution was Lulu.com, through whom I made available a collection of my work to then-date. I suppose it’s technically self-publishing, but really I just thought of it as making stories I wasn’t interested in placing in journals anyway available directly to readers who might be interested. Turns out there were some, and it’s sold a (very) modest quantity of books, and even ended up becoming the first documented e-book on an iPhone.
More than that, anyone who wants to read those stories can. When people ask me if I’ve published anything, I don’t mention obscure literary journals or tiny presses nobody’s ever heard of.
I just hand them my book, and then let the words do their thing. They always seem to when I remember to get the hell out of their way.
Posted 08 Jan 2008 at 5:30 pm ¶As always, Armand has generated a nice outpouring of comments.
I have to say I’ve been all over this myself. Following my MFA I had a collection of stories, and I had every intention of revising and shopping them around. Then when I think of the process, the rejection, the fiction that I read from a number of outlets that I don’t really appreciate in the first place… Well, the collection is at is was and I’m finding lately that I’m enjoying writing my screenplay way more than I did with fiction. Why? It could be because I don’t feel that same pressure I gave myself to get published and I’m just immersed in the craft and the story. I’m hoping to infuse that mindset in my short fiction writing and that novel that is still percolating.
Anyway, thanks again for starting another good conversation. And for those who are paying attention, I hope to get back to regular posts in the next week or two — holidays and a new job have been pushing idle Internet time way in the background.
Plus, it’s nice sometimes to just be quiet when you don’t have anything to say.
Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 10:52 pm ¶I feel your pain, Armand, and I haven’t even started shopping my collection around. I figured I’d give it a few shots with some university contests, but I’m not even going to bother with the bigger houses.
My feeling on short fiction thesis is this: you may have a great manuscript and some amazing pieces, but the reality is that there isn’t the readership for collections. I look at putting together my stories as a learning process–finding my voice, working hard to write the best I can, but also understanding the publishing context in which we live. It’s true there are the select few amazing writers who write exclusively short fiction and can make a living at it, but for every one of those, there are a thousand of us (at least!). Even those really excellent writers I read who are writer-famous (i.e., not household names, but known and revered among the MFA-volk), pretty much have teach at universities to get by.
For the rest of us, there’s the real world and nothing but your courage and maybe a community of commiserating souls to pull you through the slumps. Write something new, read something new, and keep your chin up. Far easier said than done, but it’s really all you can do.
Posted 10 Jan 2008 at 11:24 pm ¶An agent told me that short story collections are almost impossible to publish, especially from a young and relatively unknown writer (which would probably characterize many readers of this blog, including me). They are almost impossible to publish because so few people read collections and a press is guaranteed to lose its ass. So, you can hardly blame them for not wanting to publish our collections.
This was a couple years ago now. What did I do? I started writing a novel.
Posted 13 Jan 2008 at 7:21 am ¶Again- I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful feedback. One thing I appreciate about this blog is how the comments here span a wide spectrum from the gently encouraging to ‘take a break’ to tough love (It’s true, Theresa- nobody promised me a rose garden)
A number of people reminded me that I need to separate publishing from writing. Whether I am published or not, I can still enjoy the actual craft. After all, if (on some level) I don’t love writing, then what the hell am I doing? I do love writing, and I do love telling stories, and I love the occasional touches of poetry that I find in my prose, and I have to remind myself that it’s okay to fail.
In thinking about my depression, I realized that I have to take some of the pressure off myself. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be ok with my life the way it is right now and stop comparing it to some potential life. I am not homeless or hungry or sick. I have a happy family and some good friends and a chance to sneak in some writing every now and then. It’s not a bad life. Of course, this is easier said than done. Part of what drives me to write is an ambition to produce great work that others will share (I know this seems grandiose, but- come on- that’s part of what drives you too, right?). This ambition is fueled both by negative and positive emotions. I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that, while part of my motivation in writing comes from love and positive emotions, another part of what drives me to stay up long past bed time to scratch out a few pages of my novel are darker emotions: jealousy, fear, and an almost comically selfish notion that, yes, it really is all about me, me and me.
So for now I have my new mantra. My life is ok the way it is, and let’s see how things play out.
I also wanted to follow up and say I liked reading JSB’s suggestion about the spike. I appreciate Kristi Holl’s recommendation of Ralph Keyes’ Writer’s Book Of Hope. Thanks Theresa for the tough love. I agree with most of the commenters who mentioned that the short fiction market seems to be dying out and that I really need to just keep grinding away. I think Will Entriken touched on an interesting idea by suggesting that the literary fiction market is oriented toward selling to stories to writers rather than selling to readers although, to be fair, I’ve always thought of literary journals as the equivalent to tiny art and photo galleries, and it’s okay for artists to support the arts.
Happy 2008-
Armand
Posted 15 Jan 2008 at 11:15 am ¶Hi Armand,
There is another way you can look at this too–you can start working on the novel while also taking one or two of your best stories and trying to revise them for publication in journals (if you haven’t already). Publishing in a lit journal, particularly a top or near top-tier one will give you legitimacy for your novel as well as for the collection of shorts if you end up shopping that down the line.
But I sympathize with you; I really do. I stumbled in here because I just found out I lost a contest, and I’m being quite silly about it. As Theresa says, there are no guarantees, and this can be a very thorny path.
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 2:13 pm ¶I say to myself: what else are you going to do while you are here on this Earth? Spend the time NOT writing?
Posted 07 Apr 2008 at 2:06 am ¶I think you just have to keep moving forward–sometimes I feel like the whole submission process (first to literary journals and then when the collection is finished, to literary agents) is just training to get our skin thicker, thicker, thicker.
Posted 05 May 2008 at 10:26 pm ¶I just got a rejection a few minutes ago. I’d like to know this guy who saw fit to reject my story. We all can be herds of sheep or actual individuals. Ambrose Bierce said, “A novel is a heavy padded short story”. A short story is harder to construct. In a novel you can go about and throw in some useless crap to take up pages.
I mean should we all be slaves to the publishing industries and write what they tell us to write. I really do not think that is fair. Is anyone going to be a publishing industries bitch? These industries poison the mind of the new writer to write in a certain way or to tell a story in a certain way. Some people are called to write novels and others short stories. While I am constructing new stories I’ll be busy sending off the rejeted ones. And, if worse comes to worse I will just publish it myself. Many people love and read short stories since we live in a fast paced age. Though the rejection hurts and I am still mending my wounds, this is how I feel.
And I don’t know, what I write I am always an outsider.
Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 8:29 pm ¶I’ve given up on trying to do anything with my short stories and am just treating them as exercises. Also, I’m just not in the right head space for rejection at the moment. Maybe when I have other things to focus on. I had a flash of beginners luck when I first started writing, but if I really think about it my first few stories were all rejected before they were accepted. The only difference was that when the rejection slips came back, I was too busy with another aspect of my life to notice. I didn’t have aspirations at the time to write so was chuffed when things were accepted.
I’m now at a stage where I’ve got that agent letter saying, yes come back to us when you’ve got a book.
And it’s all about subject selection.
No wonder there are literary hoaxes…
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