rejection - romance.

I recieved a very nice, very positive rejection for my novel from Canongate (big damn heroes, and yes that would be my choice of publishing house if I could publish with anyone in the world). The only thing that bugged me is that they said they rejected the novel on the basis that they didn't publish romance genre. Uh. I don't think my novel is a romance. Sure, I have joked that the closest thing to definition for it would be experimental chick-lit. I wonder if their answer would be the same if they didn't know I was a woman. Plenty of writers turn in novels that are basically a love story but no one would dream of calling that "romance". So the basis of my book is a romantic/erotic relationship but that doesn't make it of the romance genre anymore than you would consider The Bird Room or Apples romances.

In any case I think I've learned a lesson: I changed the synopsis I'm sending out a bit to include the other elements of the plot that have nothing to do with romance genre (the non-chronological narration, the music, the imaginary construction of the city). And just in case I've only put my initials so that nobody can tell if I'm a guy or a woman at first.

you have been selected at random

My complimentary issues of Mslexia Magazine arrived in the mail yesterday.

It doesn't really help to read all the people who won the competition that I did not win.

On the other hand, Blake Butler's list of towering literary artists makes me happy. Specially Amy Hempel of course.

Rejection, but with a smile

My story "European Nights" was rejected by Thieves Jargon. It's not a very good story and I sort of submitted it on pure faith but the rejection email by Dan signing for co-editor Steve Young was short and nice and made me feel good about the rejection and he even suggested some reading, which I think it's beyond cool. And he welcomed me to submit again, which I will totally do, cause I love TJ. A rejection that does not crush my soul? Yep, they exist.

in defence of the mediocre (that's me)

you know, i get why contest have entry fees but on the other hand, I just spent 7 quid entering the Bridgeport Prize and it kinda hurts. (and with a story that, in its first incarnation, was already been rejected by Ambit Magazine so I don't know why I bother - but I am secretly gleeful that at least I know one of my heroes Ali Smith will be reading the entries, so there's that).

And then there's the Manchester Fiction prize, which I really want to enter but oh well IT'S 15 BLOODY POUNDS. surely, the prize is £10,000 but most of us won't win that so. Getting shortlisted for that would be the coolest ever, wouldn't be? I mean, it would give me a proper excuse to finally visit Manchester, land of Thomas De Quincey, Jeanette Winterson, the Hacienda, Life on Mars and the 1999 football team of everybody's dreams.

In short: I want to enter literary contests but have no money. Entry fees are unfair (for me right now, I'm sure if you give me five minutes I'll come up with a good defence of contest entry fees but right now I'm hungry and can only afford Dae Ramen noodles as dinner).

I also had an excerpt of my novel, The Cardiff Affair, rejected by Dogzplot. And it's only Monday. Let's see if I can get to my birthday with at least five rejections this week.

It's really hot in London today and I don't feel like buying groceries. I stay in my room and go through the "very awesome writing" folder in my bookmarks and I wish, more than anything for a moment, that I was as talented as Matthew Kirkpatrick.

it's not that i don't like lit mags, it's that they don't like me.

Another rejection, this time via anderbo.com, for my poor story about gay footballers (wait, you say. aren't all your stories about gay footballers? most possibly, yes). I didn't have much hopes for that one cause it wasn't exactly anderbo material. In any case, I'd thought I'll start posting about these things, at the risk of turning this blog into a chronicle of my failure.

In happier news: the Esotika, Erotica, Psychotica blog reviewing Arrebato makes me very happy. It's a wonderful review, as are most on that blog. In this case I have seen the film, but sometimes I enjoy reading reviews of films I've never seen so I can imagine how they could be. Like I often enjoy writing synopsis for books that haven't been written.

Arrebato is one of those movies, well, in Spain, it is a very big deal. Unavailable for years I had to be content with reading a million essays about it during a long long time. Directors and writers I admired praised it as the most challenging Spanish movie ever made. Its director, Iván Zulueta is kind of a doomed figure. When I finally got to see it I was afraid to be dissapointed, as it often happens with movies of such great expectations. Still, Arrebato is darker and weirder and cooler than anything you can imagine beforehand. I got to watch it on cinema in a festival but watched at home on the small tv screen it is equally terrifying. And strangely exhilarating. It's also my favourite take on the old trope "cinema as vampirism". It made me afraid of Super-8. I like films that are not a representation of relality but a different reality altogether.

on rejection

There's this wonderful thing Jac Jemc does in her journal: she posts about every rejection he gets about any of her poems or stories. It is intensely healing to read about those things. Writers sometimes feel very alone about this sort of thing, we often think we are the only writers in the universe to ever get rejected. I enjoy other people's misery stories as much as I enjoy their triumph stories. Both are inspirational in their own way.

I had a job interview today.

I really wanted that job. It's a job at the theatre. And- Oh boy, I was going to say "theatre is my thing" but it's more really a matter of theatre being the thing that I want to be my thing.

Well, needless to say -if you take a hint from the title of this entry- I did quite badly in the interview. I did horridly. Comically so. I should make a short film about the kind of incompetence I displayed today.

What is more, this week I got a neat letter from Ambit saying they weren't interested in my story. Thank you but no, thank you.

Writers are a funny lot. On one hand we tend to be quite ego-bound, quite tough in our arrogance to believe that we have something to add to the history of literature (that we have something to say and all those trite lines, etc). On the other hand the level and frequency of our exposure to REJECTION is amazing. There must be something masochistic about us. Even then most detached author has to admit that something quite secret and private goes into writing and piece and then to send it out in the world and have someone you've never met say "bleh, I don't like it" (& send you a letter about how they don't like it), wow, it's really a grim prospect. Why do we keep doing this?

So I got rejected by Ambit. And I obviously didn't win the Mslexia short story contest with my Shakesperean tale. Or the Bristol Prize. And I'm obviously not going to win the ABCtales contest with my shitty, juvenile story. And the Bush won't produce my plays. So yeah, rejection is in the air this summer.

Sometimes I worry I am not edgy enough. I look at the writers I admire, the writers getting published frequently are either on the side of weird, dark, or extremely experimental. I think I stick too closely to traditional forms (I'd like to blow them from the inside, like Sarah Kane blew half of Blasted). I wish I were weirder, darker or more experimental.

I also wish I was Samuel Beckett.

Actually I mainly wish I was Sam Beckett.

So today's theme is rejection. It always hurts, even (specially?) when we say it doesn't. I felt monumentally shitty after doing so bad in the job interview. And as I often do when I feel less than brilliant I walked into a bookstore. Surround myself with books, that soothes the pain somehow. That sounds really esoteric and wanky. Sounding like a pretentious 14-year-old was my main trouble in the interview. I have to look into it. Anyway-

This afternoon I sat down at Foyles and I picked up a copy of Chris Killen's "The Bird Room". I never put it back. I took it home.