And By "Editors," We Mean "Summer Interns"

Dear Writer:

The editors of Esquire appreciated the opportunity to read your work. We’re sorry to tell you that it does not fit our needs at this time. For future submissions, please keep the following in mind:

•Esquire is no longer accepting paper submissions. If you would like to submit a story for publication, please go to Esquiresubmissions.com and do so electronically.

•We want stories that feel especially timely and urgent and speak to current events and the state of the world around us.

•We cannot consider stories longer than 5,000 words.

•We ask that you use 12-point font, double-spaced. Verdana or Times New Roman preferred. Be sure your name, contact information, story title, and word count are at the top of your document and please remember to number your pages.

•Please direct any questions to fictioneditor@hearst.com.

Best,

The Editors

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Maybe They're Wrong And You're Right

Just a little continuation from Friday's fun. Remember this: People are wrong all the time. Sometimes the people who reject you are wrong too.

• “I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” –The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957


• “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” –Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977


• “You have buried your novel underneath a heap of details which are well done but utterly superfluous." --Editorial rejection of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, c. 1856


• “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927


• “I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” –Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”


• “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” –Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899


• “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” –Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872


• “The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." –Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873


• “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” –Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929

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Let Us Now Console Ourselves

Rude Rejection: "The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help." (Crash by J. G. Ballard)

Rude Rejection: "This will set publishing back 25 years." (The Deer Park by Norman Mailer)

Rude Rejection: "Do you realize, young woman, that you're the first American writer ever to poke fun at sex." (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos)

Rude Rejection: "My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir." (Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde)

Rude Rejection: "We found the heroine as boring as her husband did." (Journey Back to Love by Mary Higgins Clark)

Rude Rejection: "It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it." (The Torrents of Spring by Ernest Hemingway)

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From Today's MailBag

Sent in by an LROD Mouse:

From: "Boston Review"
Date: Recently To: Anonymouse Subject: Your submission to Boston Review
Dear [name],
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to review "Title." We have given your work close consideration and find that it does not suit our present needs. We wish you success in placing it elsewhere. Thank you for thinking of Boston Review.
Sincerely,
The Editors of Boston Review

I don't know why, but this one feels a little chilly in its mundane approach to the task at hand. Maybe because it's so warm and sunny out today.

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Let's All Chillax

I get impatient waiting. I know, I know; I should suck it up and make peace with the fact that waiting is half of a writer's job. Agent 99 has at least very kindly written to say that she's sorry she hasn't gotten to read my revision yet, she's had a crazy month, and my manuscript is on the top of her pile now. Still: tic-tock, tic-tock. I don't know why; what difference does it make if she reads it now or in a month? If she approves of the revision, and takes it on, that means hurry up and wait to see if she can sell it. If she doesn't want to move forward with it, that means a whole new path (i.e., look for a new agent, put it on the shelf, send it to editors, or whatevs). So, let's all just take a big deep breath and live in the moment together. Om....shanti. Let peace and light bathe our hearts, right? I'll do some paid work and write a little bit on my new nonfiction book. Maybe I'll even take a dip in the ocean a little later. As my mother-in-law (who just had a nice visit with us) would say, "What could be bad?"

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What Do You Eat While Writing?

Did you guys see this fun stuff on Sunday? I like to eat carrots or celery and peanut butter while writing though a little messy. Or (gluten-free) pretzels and apple juice. You?

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On Wishing I Could Quit This Depressing Business

One of the anonymice happened to indicate that s/he had quit writing. Got fed up and gave the whole messy business up.  When I lamented that I wished I could do it to, here was the wise response:

It's not that hard, really. You just have to give up the ego thing.It feels nice to stop jumping through the flaming hoops they set up for you (as if you were a trained poodle in a sideshow). Anyway, after you jump through them they still have some trumped up reason to reject you. Write, if you must. Share your work with friends and others. I sent a story to a friend, she passed it on to her mother, the mother had it read by a reading group she was in. So fifteen people read and discussed it and shared their reactions with me. I haven't submitted it to any magazine. Why bother?

But is it really my ego that's the problem? I think it's that I don't know how to do anything else.  Maybe I am a decent cook; I enjoy concocting something wonderful and creative for friends and family, but I'd never want to do it full time or as a profession.  That would suck the joy right out of it for me.  But, seriously, I can only do one other thing, and that's write. So maybe it's my lack of ego that's the problem. BTW, I've tried quitting before. It never sticks.

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