Several years ago when messing with script writing I collected a a whole pile rejection letters. From carefully considered, personal comment and advice, to a simple photocopied strip of paper with a standard negative notification, each one each one meant one thing: I was not sitting around allowing fears and insecurity to overcome my ambition.

What surprised me about that first experience with those letters was how impersonally I took the rejection. I took to heart the advice that rejection is a necessary evil for all writers, and simply accepted it. Admittedly, the more extreme, impersonal paper strips sting just a little as they do suggest your work had not even been looked at, but the handful that offered genuine advice and useful information were well worth it.

I have mentioned previously how difficult it will be for me to land a literary agent without a background in the business and before I have a publishing offer, so I cannot hang all my hopes on any one particular approach. Someone out there somewhere, sometime will hook into the project, understand it, and appreciate how it might become successful.

Never fear rejection, never take it personally. Celebrate your rejection letters because they signal that you are actively trying, getting your work under people’s noses, and playing the game.

UPDATE 05/05/09: The third rejection letter arrived a few days ago. Time to tweak the style of the approach and hammer down another three doors!

I am under no illusions about the nature of the climb ahead of me to get Persistent Spirit and the rest of the Table Rappers series published and out on bookshelves. (Why I have swung a u-turn back from online publishing to traditional publishing is for another post.)

The chances of me landing an agent without already having some kind of publishing deal, or at least an offer, is very slim. But not impossible. A superb post on advice in finding a literary agent can be found on Neil Gaiman’s site.

It has to be the right one

Last weekend I waded through a database of Literary Agents and was surprised how straightforward it was to filter out those clearly not suitable for my submission. It took about 3 hours of research to pin down three possible candidates, carefully assessing the requirements and tone of their websites, and, of course, their current author list.

The principle criteria for me is to find an agent that understands a long running series of connected novels and associated online and offline elements. One that will respect my career experience and how that can be applied to promotion ongoing is also important.

This begs the question: If I get an offer from a agent who I feel does not properly fit those criteria, will I turn down the offer?

I hope the answer will be: yes, I will walk away for a more appropriate deal. But unless I am actually in that position, I don’t think I can make that decision ahead of time. There is too much to weigh-up.

Waiting for rejection

Sending the three submissions in the post this afternoon was an interesting experience. There is no nervousness, no fears, no nail-chewing whilst listening for the rejection letter response to pop through the letterbox in six to eight weeks.

Thankfully, the notion of rejection is something I came to terms with very early on, when I began venturing into writing. Fear of professional rejection is irrational and as a guaranteed stepping stone on the usually long, winding path to be published, is something no-one can side-step.

I do not lack confidence in my work. I know there is an audience for it, and I’ll just keep hammering at doors until I find someone who understands where that audience is.

What’s next?

Agents, like publishers, quote around six to eight weeks for a response. I’ll not confuse the issue by submitting to more agents in that time, but may make some direct to publisher submissions if I feel it is necessary.

Work on the final chapters of Persistent Spirit continues, and work on the second book, A Shot in Time, is accelerating in the background with story structure and planning starting to kick-in when there’s the time.

This one will be an exciting project for me coming to a new novel after my experience with the first – there will be less mystery, and less trying to work out just how to make it happen. This is a good thing because the story is promising to be more complex being split into two distinctly different locations (I’m not giving anything else away on that, it’s a surprise!).

There are pros and cons to this method as you might imagine. As the Persistent Spirit story begins to enter its final phase and the end of the book is on the horizon, I find myself contemplating whether I might undergo the same process for the second book, A Shot in Time.

The cons

Time: writing and recording an episode consumes 15-20 hours of effort. Maintaining that each week with an increasingly demanding and unpredictable day-job has been, frankly, stressful.

Structure: episodes have a completely different structure to a novel, requiring continuing momentum, restructured scenes, and some point of tension at the end of each one. Unedited, this brings the novel a strange, pulse-like pace which now needs a further re-write.

The pros

Progress: episodes promoted regular writing. I believe I am further along in the story than I would have been without to self imposed demands of a regular episodic production.

Story momentum: despite the structure issue mentioned above, the story has a pace and continues to move along ithout getting bogged down and sluggish. Once the “episodic pulse” is edited out I think the novel will have an enhanced page-turning pace.

Feedback: reaching out with even an unpolished story to potential audience around the globe has generated feedback that has helped both encourage the work and help shape it.

What’s in store for 2009?

Not another audio book, that’s for sure. The pros most certainly outweigh the cons, so the audio book of the second Table Rappers book must correct some of the negatives of this years’ experience. Most importantly is the frustration from being unable to produce regular, weekly episodes. Book two (titled A Shot in Time) will not be released as serialised audio until it has completed the second draft.

That does not mean there will be nothing from the Table Rappers in 2009, however. I’m planning some short story dramatised episodes, including a cast of actors, full sound effects, etc. Doesn’t that mean even more work? Yes, but the work flow can be controlled around the production, and such a project is free from an ongoing, weekly deadline.

2009 is already promising to be a challenging year on both personal and professional fronts, so careful planning will be essential to achievement of my goals. I’m thoroughly looking forward to what might prove to be a formative year for the future!

I posted on the TableRappers site yesterday an announcement about the fifth book in the series. The concept I have had hanging around for a while, but the title escaped me until quite recently.

I find titles vital in the early stages of a creative project. They help to create focus, to solidify the idea beyond simply vague concepts. From a practical viewpoint, they create opportunities to organise and schedule.

As a graphic designer, one of the first tasks for a new project is always to create a brand, develop a logo, construct a visual representation of the idea. This process transforms the idea from little more than a spark of inspiration, into tangible potential.

Planning that far ahead?

I have always had in the back of my mind to write a minumum of six TableRappers books. But for now, the premise for book six is little more than a vague notion regarding the story arcs of the main protagonists – the ‘big picture’ stuff – and with book one still being written, I have enough to concentrate on for the next two to three years.

In a recent interview published in Writer’s magazine, Iain Banks, when asked whether he works on future books while writing the current one, responded with “Good god, no”.

I simply could not work exclusively on just one project. Sure, the primary project gets 95% of my energy, but I’m always looking ahead, planning the future development, and setting my sights on ever expanding horizons. For me, if I am planning on writing full time (eventually), then I better have enough ideas up my sleeve to keep me occupied!