rejection Archives - Addicted to Writing

Recently Published, Pitched, Read & Watched: Updates for the Week

Posted on May 2, 2016 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Freelance Writer, hard at work — Me, hard at work at my favorite coffee shop.

This has been a busy few days. I’ve reevaluated my blogging goals, recovered from the latest bout of my capricious gastritis and collected three rejections. Since it was three rejections for three different stories, there’s a lot of hope on the horizon.

For one thing, I took a leap in trying to break into three publications I’ve not been published on before. I also went about discovering two great books, two interesting movies and got published on Write Naked.

Below are my notes on them. Read on and see if they might also catch your fancy.

(P.S. I used affiliate links in my post, so if you purchase from those, I make a little money at no extra cost to you.)

Non-fiction:

The Art of Creative Thinking by Rod Judkins, but I’ll be coming back to that book again and again. Stay tuned because I’ll be reviewing the book here soon.

I also loved and will keep with me for a long time:How to Do It All: The Revolutionary Plan to Create a Full, Meaningful Life — While Only Occasionally Wanting to Poke Your Eyes out with a Sharpie by Linda Formichelli. Again, the review is in the works.

I’m reading Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin and loving it.

Yes, if there is a fun, well-written and practical non-fiction book that covers creativity, productivity and time-management while keeping potential personality quirks in mind, I’m game.

Fiction: The Widow by Fiona Barton

Wow, this book was dark and depressing. Sure, it was engaging, but I don’t want to keep it. I don’t want to revisit or reread.

Apparently there are comparisons to Gone Girl. I only watched the movie and read the screenplay, but I can tell you that Gone Girl is not that depressing. Maybe because it doesn’t involve child abuse, kidnapping and potential child murder.

The Widow tells the story of Jean, a woman who remains the center of media attention after her husband, suspected child abuser/kidnapper/killer is killed in an accident. Did she really know her husband? Was he really guilty? And was she a part of it?

While the book isn’t as gory as Gone Girl, it’s definitely darker, and it’s enough to put off reading certain thrillers for a while. So do I recommend it? You decide.

Recently Watched and Enjoyed: Mr. Right, Cube

I’ve watched two movies: one to study, one for absolute pleasure.

Cube: In the name of studying screenwriting

Cube movie poster — Cube poster via wikipedia.

Cube was for studying mystery/sci-fi plot as it is famous for its low-budget, as well as original and captivating plot. While it’s not too gory on the whole, it has a few scenes that are not for the faint-hearted.

Was the plot as amazing as I heard? Well, yes. However, the acting was uneven, and *spoilers*, if you want a solid reason/purpose for the cube, you are in for disappointment. But it’s worth your time if you know that going in. I had fun, but I prefer movies whose plots have better reasons than “it’s the way it is.” (More on Cube in later posts.)

Mr. Right starring Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick: For Fun

Don’t be fooled by the name. Mr. Right is a usually hilarious and absurd romantic comedy, crime comedy and action comedy movie where a reformed hitman falls for a girl with issues, and together they form the perfect couple.

But of course she will have to deal with his “job,” and the men after him for different reasons. The hitman is Sam Rockwell, and the girl of his dreams is played by Anna Kendrick. If you love Rockwell like I do, it’s a must. His action/dancing scenes are my favorite, as well as most of his lines.

Of course given how many genres it’s tackling, it’s a bit uneven, illogical and strange. I loved it, but don’t be disappointed by wanting a straightforward romantic comedy or action comedy. Also, almost all characters are crazy.

You’ve been warned.

Recently Published:

Well, it’s not all rejections. I’m proud to say I’ve been published on one of my favorite blogs, Tara Lynne Groth’s Write Naked. Check out my tips on how not to make social media mistakes as a writer, and stay for other posts. It’s an invaluable resource for writers.

That’s it. Please share this post if it inspired you to read, watch and/or pitch.

What have you watched, read, pitched and published this week?

Starting All Over Again: Rejection and Planning Again

Posted on March 20, 2016 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I haven’t updated my blog for a while. And when I disappear (from the blog) for that long, usually something is up. This time is no different

I want to move abroad, specifically to Vancouver, Canada. And no, it’s not because I’m an American and I’m running because of a scary but possible Donald Trump presidency. Although I’m scared of Donald winning, I have more pressing issues to deal with.

In between juggling writing assignments and editing my fiction, I thought I at least knew where my life was headed. I applied to a good master’s program in Vancouver at a school I could afford. They didn’t specify a reason for their rejection.

Now, I’m used to rejection. I get rejected as a writer. I move on and write pieces on how to deal with it because for the most time, it’s easy to move on.

But this time, I let it get it to me. It created a lot of questions. I always meant what I said about plans B,C,D and all the way to the Z in case plan A failed, but this time it took a while to get back to work:

I wasn’t sure where to start, and to add more confusion to overwhelm:

I had to stop working with several ongoing clients. (Either the projects ended, or their demands changed significantly). My income took a loss.
I caught a cold, which often can trigger a depressed state (why this happens is the subject of another personal essay entirely).
The winter kept bringing on highly unstable weather, which kept triggering my colds and affecting my social life,
And there’s a constant new tragedy in the world that affects you one way or the other.

I’ve been wanting to leave for a long time, but I’ve been adamant that not just any place will do. I want better conditions and not worse. I want to speak the language of the country, or at least know something about the culture & language . The countries I want to move to aren’t that thrilled to have freelance writers with unimpressive bank accounts, which ironically gets emptier with all the things one might have to do to deal with visa procedures.

The bank account does suffer from the feast or famine syndrome because I refuse to write about things I am not interested in, and I also have three separate fiction projects I’m trying to get off the ground.

But I’m back, and I’ll hopefully have a great April. March wasn’t kind.

How have you been?

2 Types of Rejection You Should Love (or At Least Appreciate)

Posted on September 7, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

No, I haven’t gone all psycho or masochistic on you. Obviously you don’t want to get rejected. You don’t write to get rejected. At least I hope you don’t.

But when you are a writer, in addition to death and taxes, you can also count on being rejected. It just comes with the territory.

However not all rejections carry the same value, and they definitely don’t have the same effect.

Now, I think we can agree on the types of rejection that suck:

1) The “no-reply” rejection

Days pass. Weeks go by. Nothing from the editor/publisher. Nada.

Did your query get lost in the inbox? Did the editor see it, and file it to check it out later? Did it get in the spam folder? Or it was seen, read and rejected?

There’s no way to know, so you have 2 options: Follow up, or forget.

Frankly, so far I’ve not really gained anything from a follow-up apart from a short thanks-but-no-thanks reply in one case. Other times my short, polite and to-the-point follow-up emails were never returned.

Carol Tice makes a valid point in the post she explains her follow-up strategy: She just doesn’t do it. Because it’s better to move on than spend time chasing one idea.

However sometimes the idea is too good, too timely to miss, so you want to get your reply as soon as possible.

So I appreciate publications that include their response time in their guidelines while advising to pitch elsewhere if you don’t hear from them in that period.

2) The ever-late thanks but no thanks reply

It’s indeed a case of “better late than never”. Because at least you know you have to move on, and you don’t need to waste time following up.

But it’s still a rejection, and it involves no specifics on why your idea wasn’t good enough. And while there’s no obligation on the editor’s part to explain (or frankly any expectation from me to hear the why), it leaves you guessing on what didn’t work.

The idea? The timing? The language? A combination of several factors?

But of course I’ll take this one over no reply any day.

3) The cruel reply.

I haven’t received this, and I’m hoping I won’t. But some horror stories from other writers did let me believe that some people might get too creative in their rejection emails when they detail their reasons. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Attacks aren’t.

Now on the good stuff: 2 Types of Rejection to Love

1) The fast rejection:

Some editors are very quick (as in they reply in a week or two) in responding, whether they like your pitch or not.

Most of the time these fast-answering editors are also writers, and they know (and not just remember) what it is like to be querying.

Of course my initial reaction is disappointment, but soon it’s replaced by genuine gratitude. It feels great knowing that you can move on with the idea.

2) The personalized rejection, preferably with an invitation to pitch again.

I once got rejected by an editor who didn’t find my piece (on spec) lively enough. But she went on to say that she liked my writing in general, even naming a piece that she liked from this blog, and invited me to pitch again. That was the best rejection ever.

I could go back to review what went wrong with my style, and manage not to remake those mistakes again. I also felt flattered and encouraged, as opposed to down and disappointed.

We all get rejected at one point ot another. So it’s just better when we know for sure, and we know why.

Do you have problems dealing with rejection? These posts will help. They might even make you smile:

How to Handle Rejection (and When It Might Be A Good Thing)

How to Manage the Evil Three: Rejection, Depression & Procrastination

A Unique Way of Dealing with Romantic Rejection

6 Cliché Writing (Career) Tips To Benefit From

Posted on March 6, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

You might remember from my When It’s OK to Use Cliches in Your Writing: Hidden Metaphors – Poison’s Bret Michaels Style post that I am all for clichés that work. That post will be followed up with more working clichés (especially in fiction). But this article is dedicated to classic writing tips.

There are more than 6 of course, but today I’m tackling these 6 popular ones.

– Write about what you know

Not everything you know might be fun or lucrative to write about, but I bet some of your vast knowledge is fun, lucrative or both.

Writing about movies, TV shows and music is incredibly entertaining for me. In addition to running an entertaining blog, I got my first assignments on these subjects too.

Then there is the fact that your internal entertainment trivia database can help in finding many fun references and making your points come across in a more remarkable way. Copyblogger does it. Carol Tice does it. It works, and it comes and flows naturally.

It also fits my category Fictional Writers where I cover writers from movies and TV shows. You might want to start with my latest in that category: The Following: When Both The Protagonist and Antagonist Are Writers.

Other areas where I wrote what I knew and sold articles include traveling, business, freelancing, writing and social media.

– You don’t have to be an expert to write about a topic.

slash-gunsnroses — OK, I’d not have minded having his talent. But what are you gonna do…Slash image via fanpop.com.

You just have to know better than the audience you are targeting. Just like you don’t have to play the guitar like Slash to be able to teach a beginner, you don’t need to be light years ahead from the readers of the market you are targeting.

If this weren’t so, our publishing possibilities and writing income would shrink considerably.

That being said, I wouldn’t mind being an expert writer who could write a bestselling book on my expertise area. There is a reason so many books written by professionals turn out to be great reads. Nope, not all of them are ghost written.

– Write what you don’t know.

Time comes when the alternative gets so popular that it feels weird to call it alternative. Raise your hand if you think Radiohead no longer belongs to the alternative rock bands category.

Just like its counterpart, this is a practical and lucrative tip. Especially if these new areas you’re discovering have anything to do with finance and technology.

You know how to research. You can educate yourself about new areas and end up finding a lot of “what you know” and hopefully “what you love” in the process. My new obsession ares are microexpressions in psychology and neuropsychiatry.

– Write about what you love

I quit my full-time job because a)it wasn’t related to writing b)I hated it.

Now, while I am absolutely addicted to writing, I have no interest in writing about things that I don’t care about, or at least find interesting.

This blog is based on this idea. Writing only about what you love (granted it also depends on which areas you love) might take a longer time when bringing home the big bucks. So you have been warned.

But I found the perfect balance by supporting my writing income with part time teaching. Teaching helps me with being more social (as opposed to the solitariness of writing) and prevents me from taking jobs that don’t excite me. Win-win. Oh, and it also worked as an article idea.

– Make yourself familiar with the publication

In other words, research the publication like mad. While it won’t guarantee being published, it is one of your strongest weapons to increase the odds in your favor. Team it up with a great idea, an exciting query and you are good to go.

– Everyone gets rejected.

You’ll get rejected. It sucks, but after a little practice (and some published articles/stories), you’ll learn to shake it off (in a shorter time).

Sure, there might be a writer out there who never gets rejected. But then it is possibly a writer who is not really working. At least not for others.

Even if you’ve eliminated the query process and ensured that clients come and find you, there is a chance not all your ideas won’t knock your clients’ socks off. Statistically speaking.

So yes. I know you heard it before. It’s not personal, and it can be due to a variety of reasons. It is however almost never about your writing skills. It might be about the idea, or how you structured that particular article.

If there is constructive feedback, take it, thank for it, revise and re-slant for another. Yes, there are other reasons but usually the fix is the same: get to the source of the problem (if it is writing skills, that can be improved too), take care of it and don’t let the idea go to waste.

Most ideas can be salvaged through brainstorming, improving and recycling.

So what cliché writing tips work for you? Do you have any favorites?