Reversals of Fortune

Two weeks ago I posted about story sales in 2013 and tried to address some issues about the number of submissions that we writers make to short fiction markets. What I didn't address was the number of rejections I received for the stories I submitted in 2013. Counting those up is always about as enjoyable as eating a live frog with blue cheese and anchovies, but I did it--and discovered that I was given a thumbs-down 14 times last year. That's a lot.

We always hear and read about the fact that rejections are to be expected and not dreaded, and that writers have to learn not to dwell on them. Well, that advice may be true, but--as with most other pieces of advice--it's easier given than followed. Nobody likes to be rejected, whether the subject is manuscripts or salary increases or dates to the prom.

War stories

Allow me to digress a moment. Years ago, when I hired on with IBM, I went through an eighteen-month training period during which I--like all sales and systems-engineering rookies--shuttled back and forth between my local branch office and classroom courses at various IBM education centers across the country. In my case, I first spent a month at the branch office; then a month in class in San Jose, California; several more months in my home branch; two months in class in downtown Los Angeles; several more months back home; two more months in class in L.A.; several more months at home; and finally a month in class in Endicott, New York, to end my year-and-a-half. The time at the local office was always spent getting field experience and studying for the next trip to a course location, and the courses themselves were a marathon of lectures, case studies, presentations, and eighteen-hour days that made me wish I was back in military boot camp.

My point (there is a point here, believe it or not) is that those ed-center classes served a second purpose: they thinned the herd. On the morning of the first day of every course, we newly-arrived students were given an entrance exam covering the material that we'd studied for the past few months, and those who didn't pass were quietly approached during lunch, kicked out of the class, and flown back home at the expense of their branch. The rumor, and this was never verified, was that anyone who failed one of those exams never continued with the company. I do know that I stayed with IBM for thirty years and I never once saw any of those folks again.

That, my friends, is rejection. To me, it's on a par with being abandoned in your wedding dress at the altar, or turned down for a loan by the last bank in town. And though no one knew it back then, similar fates would await some of those who went through the widespread downsizing of the national workforce twenty years later, when so many large companies "restructured." Those were grim times. We used to joke (miserably) that the motto in Corporate America in the 1990s was "Beheadings will continue until morale improves."

On a lesser scale…

I realize I'm being a little extreme, here. Literary rejection, although certainly unpleasant, doesn't compare to any of that. The rejection of a story or novel manuscript is not only a rite of passage for new writers, it can be a regular occurrence to many fiction authors throughout their careers. Lawrence Block once said that rejection letters are membership cards to the universal fellowship of writers. But they're still no fun.

In a 2012 piece for Glimmer Train, author Katherine Ryan Hyde (who wrote Pay It Forward and many other novels) revealed that she was rejected 122 times before her first story sale, but was able to put it into the correct perspective. I especially liked one of her observations: "I think the most damaging misconception about rejection is that your work has been judged as 'bad.' . . . In reality, you don't know how it was received."

The following are some of her suggested (and paraphrased) reasons that an editor might have for rejecting a short story:

1. I just didn't like it.

2. I liked it but I didn't love it.

3. It was good, but suited to a different type of publication.

4. I short-listed eight stories and had space for only four.

5. I liked it but couldn't sell the other editors on it.

Good reasons. And there are probably many more, including "we ran a story similar to it last month," or "it's a bit too long," or "my back hurts, and I didn't get enough sleep last night." As Ms. Hyde mentioned, there's usually just no way to know the reason a story got rejected, and it does no good to worry about it. One point, though: if you've already sold a lot of stories to a particular editor, he or she will sometimes come right out and tell you why a story didn't make the cut. I know for sure that some of my stories have failed because of reason number 5, above. If the editor-in-chief vetoes it, it doesn't matter how many lesser editors okayed it. Does that knowledge make me feel any better, or make it any easier to make a sale to that market in the future? Not really. But, again, it's important to remember that not all rejected stores were rejected because they were poorly written.

Do you recall how many rejections you received (novel, short story, nonfiction) before the publication of your first work? Did you at any point find yourself discouraged or frustrated? Did you ever come close to quitting? I think all writers suffer some measure of self-doubt, and a long run of rejections is a frequent cause.

To paint all this in an brighter light,

Consider the following:

- Grisham's A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 agents and 12 publishers.

- 12 publishers rejected J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel.

- 20 publishers turned down Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki and William Paul Young's The Shack.

- 21 publishers rejected Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H.

- Catch-22 was bought on its (?) 22nd try.

- 23 publishers rejected Frank Herbert's Dune.

- 24 agents turned down The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks). A week after the 25th accepted it, it sold to Time-Warner for a million dollars.

- Carrie got 30 rejections.

- Gone With the Wind got 38.

- The Cat in the Hat got 46.

- Stephen King's early short story "The Glass Floor" received 60 rejections, before selling for $35.

- 60 agents rejected Kathryn Stockett's The Help. The 61st accepted it, and it was sold three weeks later.

And the REALLY big numbers . . .

- The Chicken Soup for the Soul series was rejected 140 times

- Louis L'Amour was rejected 200 times before Bantam published his work.

- It took Alex Haley eight years and 200 rejections to sell Roots.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have received more than 300 rejections before he sold a story, and Jack London received 600.

- John Creasey, the world's most prolific crime writer, wrote his first published novel on the backs of 743 rejection letters.

So the next time you get one of those cold, prissy little notes that says "We regret that your submission does not meet our requirements" (which, for me, will probably be tomorrow), go ahead and say a dirty word. I do. But remember this:

You're in pretty good company.

Starting Over

What's that, buddy, you say it's a couple of days after New Year's and you're feeling a little disoriented? Your mind is uneasy and your hand hesitates when it comes to putting the current date in that upper right hand corner of your check when it comes to paying bills? You have to stop and think what year you're in?
Well, you're not alone in this, my friend. That's been the way of the world since civilization began. Different people have started their new years on different dates for centuries and some of us still aren't on the same calendar.

Take for instance, the Babylonians some four thousand years ago. Yeah, them guys what invented the original Hanging Garden. Their new year arrived on the first new moon following the vernal equinox--the day in late March which had an equal amount of day and night. This was the day they cut their barley. I assumed they then used it to make bread and beer for the resulting celebration. Happy New Year!!! I wonder if them guys were also the ones who came up with the idea of blowing horns at New Year's parties while sipping beer?

Ancient Egypt, on the other hand, pinned the first day of their new year to the annual flooding of the Nile, which made their fields fertile again for another year. This date also coincided with the rising of the star Sirius. Not sure how they got it to rain enough upriver for the flood to arrive in time for the star to shine, but that was probably enough to make an ancient Egyptian religious.

Then along comes Romulus, the founder of Rome in about the 8th century BC. He gets credit for the early Roman calendar consisting of 10 months, or 304 days in a year. Time was short in them days. His new year also started on the vernal equinox, although many subsequent rulers commenced their new year on whatever date they began their rule. Talk about having trouble planning your New Year's Eve parties in advance. Later, King Numa Pompilius decided to stretch things out, so he added the months of Januarius and Februarius. Gradually, the calendar fell out of synch with the sun, so when Julius Caesar got to be the man in charge, he put together a bunch of astrologers and math guys. With their input, he then invented the Julian calendar, obviously named after some fellow he knew and admired. Caesar declared January 1st as the first day of the new year, in honor of Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings. If I remember right, that Janus guy used to wear a mask. Citizens then attended raucous parties. Probably drank some of that Babylonian brand of beer. However, I think them Romans, to show they were a higher degree of sophisticated civilization than anybody else, were actually partial to the consumption of wine.

In 1066, William the Conqueror defeated Harold at Hastings and therefore declared January 1 to be the start of the year. It was his opinion that his coronation in England should start the year, especially since that date was also supposedly the the date of the circumcision of Christ (the 8th day after his birth on December 25th as they reckoned it). Seems the ruler got to make the rules, and it was good to be the king. This January 1 decree soon slid into disuse as England joined the rest of the Christian world to celebrate the new year on March 25th, which was known as Annunciation Day or Lady Day, the day Mary was allegedly told by Gabriel that she would bear God's son Jesus.

Not to be left out of the ongoing situation, in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII got an educated fellow to reform the Julian calendar with January 1 as the beginning of the new year again. Pope Greg then named it the Gregorian calendar after some guy he thought highly of, much like Julius did to the old Roman one back in his day. Turns out, Julius is the one who gave us Leap Years, but it took Greg's math geek to figure out which Leap Years got skipped so as to put us back on schedule with the sun.

Even though Pope Greg told all the Christians what day New Years fell on, it still took time to get all the different countries in line. France converted in 1564 with the Edict of Roussillion, Scotland in 1600 and Russia in 1700. Britain, Ireland and the British Empire waited until 1752 (Scotland evidently didn't want to be part of the British Empire in those days), while Thailand didn't come around until 1941. In the meantime, what date started your new year depended upon whether you had your date determined by the Easter Style, the Modern (or Circumcision) Style, the Annunciation (or Lady) Day Style or some other method. And, some ethnic groups still stick to their own calendars.

So, Friend, if you find some hesitation in your thinking about the what the date is during this new year, you probably come by it honestly. The first of the year date has long been subject to change in the past. Of course that same hesitation you felt could be due to the amount of Babylonian beer or Roman wine you consumed at somebody's raucous party. As for me, these days the wife and I tend to watch New Year's celebrations on either London or NYC time via television and then call it a night. Been about five years since we even bothered to watch the fireworks set off on top of Pikes Peak at midnight to mark the incoming year.

Hope you had a good one.

It's now January 3rd on my calendar of the year 20...uh...14.

The Prisoner of the Riviera

First of all, meet Janice Law:

Secondly, meet Francis Bacon:

    No, not that one, this one:  

Francis Bacon, artist.  Francis Bacon, gambler.  Francis Bacon, bon vivant.  Francis Bacon, gay, asthmatic, Irish, auto-didact, devoted to his Nanny (who lived with him until her death in 1951), and an absolute mess (his studio, by all accounts, was like something out of "Hoarders").  Francis Bacon, who must be howling over the whopping 142 million pounds paid for his portrait of Lucian Freud last year (the most ever paid for any work of art), especially since he never made anything like that sum in his life, despite his taste for high low life.  Let's just say the boy lived above his means, and that's part of what gets him in trouble.

Especially in Janice Law's "The Prisoner of the Riviera", the second of her Francis Bacon series (and if you have not yet read "The Fires of London", go and get it immediately).  Francis is back, in all his dark, louche, sardonic, hungry, artistic, reckless glory.

Monte Carlo Casino

Did I mention he's a gambler?  Well, in post-WW2 Britain, it's practically the only fun you can have (all right, there is Albert, his lover...), but Francis' luck hasn't been good.  And it doesn't improve when he sees a Frenchman shot in front of him as he and Albert head home.  Francis leaps to help, but the man - Monsieur Renard - dies.  And then Joubert, the owner of the gambling den, makes Francis an offer he can't refuse:  take a package to Madame Renard on the Riviera.  In exchange, all of Francis' gambling debts will be forgiven.  Well, Francis' debts are high, and he and Albert and Nan had already planned to go to Monte Carlo for a vacation ("A solemn promise, dear boy"), so why not.  So off they go, Francis, Albert, and Nan, to eat and drink and gamble and relax in the sun and, eventually, fulfill his commission...

Now, to those of us who know our French fairytales, the name Renard hints that this is not going to be all pate de foie gras and Chateau Lafite, although Francis does his best to consume as much of the good stuff as he can.  And indeed, when Francis (eventually) goes to fulfill his commission on a hot, lazy, dusty day, things go south remarkably quickly.  The house is sinister, the widow unusual, and two thugs seem to be following him with ill intent.  Two days later, he is the prime suspect in the murder of Madame Renard - after all, everyone knows that a foreigner, especially a British foreigner, would be the obvious suspect in a small resort town - even though the dead woman does not look at all like the Madame Renard to whom he handed that mysterious package...  And the package has disappeared.  And "Renard" used to be the codeword for various operations, some of which had to do with the Resistance...   And everyone wants him to "help" them with their inquiries - licit or illicit. Thankfully, the food is good, the wine is wonderful, and Pierre the bicyclist is delightful...  until all hell breaks loose.  Again.

Francis quickly discovers that he has walked into a world that is just as haunted by World War II as Britain, only differently.  The Riviera spent its war occupied by collaborators and resistance, fascists and communists, counterfeiters and criminals, and far too many of them are still there, still feuding, still fighting, still procuring, masquerading, lying, killing... (the bodies are piling up!)  And far too many of them want Francis dead.

"The Prisoner of the Riviera" is a fast-paced ride that has as many twists and turns as a Riviera mountain road.  And Francis is just the man to tell the story:  witty, sarcastic, honest, an artist whose interest is always in the unusual, a lover who makes no bones about who he is, a man who knows everything about the dark side of life.  Read it now, and then wait, breathlessly, for the next installment of Francis Bacon, channeled through Janice Law!

Being Resolute

by Robert Lopresti

(The pictures in this column are intended to point out something incredibly cool.  The British Library just placed more than one million illustrations from their books on Flickr.  All public domain, yours to use at will.  Wow!)

Back in 2009 I blogged  a list of New Year's Resolutions.  Last year I did it again, but that time I generously made a list for various fictional characters, hoping to improve their lives.

Well, it appears that my turn in the barrel is New Year's Day so I can't resist the chance to do it again, but this time instead of advising characters I am going to offer some useful suggestions to their creators.  I trust you will add a few in the Comments section.  If you don't I will assume you are too badly hungover to function and send someone to your house to preach temperance.  So be warned.

Horror movie writers hereby resolve not to let their characters split up when they know they are in danger, unless it has already been established that they are idiots.

Chic Lit writers resolve not to their characters use their devious feminine wiles to get something they could have just by asking, unless a point is being made about their personality.

Private eye writers resolve to get their heroes' sociopathic sidekicks some therapy. 

Noir writers resolve to remember that to be noir a work must  include crime, not merely be depressing.

Cozy writers resolve to remember that murderers need motives.

Humourous writers resolve to be funny (I'm lookin' at you, Lopresti).

Police procedural writers resolve to prevent their officers from doing things that would get their cases kicked out of court, unless it is established that they are aware of the danger.


Suspense writers resolve to admit that not every criminal has a super-intellect and obscenely good luck.

Thriller writers resolve to consider the possibility that ninety percent of all conspiracies consist of one dummy screwing up and a lot of smart people making a mess trying to hide it.

Courtroom drama writers  resolve to  occasionally show a judge who doesn't hate the  hero.

Any other suggestions?

Good-bye, 2013, Good-bye, Audrey Totter!

by Terence Faherty

Audrey Totter

Many superstitious people will breathe a sigh of relief tonight--or rather, tomorrow morning at 12:01 a.m., when 2013 heads west.  It takes with it the usual carload of movie celebrities, a few of whom will be honored at the Oscars in March.  A much more comprehensive tribute is currently airing on Turner Classic Movies.  Tucked away among the bigger names--Eleanor Parker, Joan Fontaine, Peter O'Toole, etc.--is one that resonated for me:  Audrey Totter.  She died on December 12 at age 96. 

Totter and Robert Taylor,
up to their necks in noir

Totter, an apple-cheeked blonde, was a femme fatale of film noir.  She wasn't in the class of Joan Bennett or Claire Trevor or Ava Gardner, stars who dipped a toe in noir.  Totter was more like Jane Greer, a contract-player-grade actress for whom the noir flowering of the late 1940s was a career high point.  Totter was in the original The Postman Always Rings Twice (though outshone by a luminous Lana Turner), The Unsuspected, The High Wall, and The Set-Up, to name a few.

My favorite Totter film is Lady in the Lake, perhaps the strangest of the Raymond Chandler adaptations--at least until Robert Altman happened along.  The film stars Robert Montgomery, who also directed, so he may be responsible for some of the strangeness.   Two of the odd features are relatively minor:  the movie is set at Christmastime (the opening credits feature carols and Christmas cards) and Philip Marlowe is both a P.I. and an aspiring writer.  (Everyone secretly wants to be a mystery writer, even characters in mysteries.)

The film's major oddity is that, for the bulk of its running time, the camera takes the place of Marlowe.  We see what he sees and only see Marlowe when he chances to look at a reflective surface.  Some sources claim that this gimmick was intended as a substitute for the distinctive first-person voice of the novel.  If so, it was an odd choice, as it did nothing to replicate Marlowe's voice that a simple voice-over couldn't have done better.  In fact, it makes the movie so static that it could be called a barely-movie.  It also put a lot of pressure on the supporting cast, who had to play directly to the camera.  Totter headed that group and so had most of the close-ups.  Luckily, she could handle them.

Totter from Lady in the Lake, Philip Marlowe (Robert
Montgomery) seen as hand (left) and reflection in the mirror 

Though not entirely successful, Lady in the Lake will be around for a while, in part because it's the novel's only film adaptation, in part because it was so experimental.  So Totter, who died during the Christmas season, will be seen in her prime amidst the trappings of Christmas for years to come.

Totter's death prompted a couple of thoughts.  One is that a life as long as hers makes the person in question seem almost like a time traveler.  Woodrow Wilson was president when she was born, an amazing thing.  Her Lake co-star, Robert Montgomery, who had a relatively long life for a World War II veteran, died in 1981, thirty-two years ago.  John Garfield, of Postman fame, who had a relatively short life (thirty-nine years), died in 1952, sixty-one years ago.  By his standards, Totter was granted two lifetimes and was eighteen years into a third.

The other thought is one more appropriate to this day, a day given over to life assessments and future dreams.  It is that any person working in a creative field, be it a femme fatale actress or a mystery writer, will be lucky to be remembered.  That person will be luckier still if his or her work lives on for a time.  My toast tonight will be that all of our best work will!     

Social Media

As 2013 ends and 2014 begins, I'm finding myself in a somewhat melancholy mood.  Maybe even a bit vulnerable, tinged with sadness. The 29th of December is the eighth anniversary of the day my whole world changed. My husband, Elmer Grape, my first reader, my love and best friend of almost thirty nine years died.

Not using this as a plea for sympathy but just asking the question that occurs to me, every now and again. What and why are we telling people our personal information?
Young people are only now realizing that sending nude photos or sexting information to their heart throb can get them in serious trouble. Of course, adults have been guilty of it too. Think that man in the political arena in NY who recently ran for office again. Yes, I know his name, and so do you, but no sense naming him. Just as soon forget him.

People recently have sent messages over Twitter that they wish they hadn't almost immediately. Sometimes managing to get fired from their job in the process. It's also possible to lose out on getting a job because the person doing the hiring, checks out the applicants social media page. How about your lawyer checking it out when you're getting a divorce? Or your parole officer when you're out of jail and on parole? Not to many good reasons here to broadcast your innermost feelings to the whole world.

Yet I find there is much good that happens when you tell everyone that your pet is sick or has died. Other pet lovers send you encouragement, healing thoughts and reminders that our beloved pet awaits us just over the rainbow bridge. That we'll be reunited with that furry child one day. Or mentioning an illness of your pet, you may learn of a different or unusual treatment. It may be nothing more than helping you feel better until you can report your pet has recovered.

How about discussing with social media when there's an illness in your immediate family. Or a divorce? Or a death? Many writers are basically solitary people who actually don't like talking much to outsiders. Others don't think anything about sharing what's going on in their lives.

Honestly, I think sharing and getting positive responses from others, friends, family or even Facebook friends can be helpful in my times of joy, sorrow or stress.  Sometimes just discussing how you feel, helps you handle whatever is going on in your world. To me that's the good part of social media. These "out there" forms of everyone knowing everything about you is certainly something to think about and discuss.

Let me hear how others feel about being reticent or opening yourself up in this manner.
I'm hoping to reach a middle road… not telling everything I know or feel, but certainly not above asking for a hand of friendship when I feel I may need it. How about you?

I had an awesome Christmas and visit with part of my family in Pigeon Forge and Nashville, TN and am looking forward to seeing more family in the next week or two. And I'm certainly looking forward to what this bright NEW YEAR of 2014 has to bring. Look out Texas, here I come.

Three Firsts

by Louis Willis

My favorite fiction in the crime genre is detective stories. Before I retired I didn’t read the introductions to anthologies because I felt the summaries of the stories would interfere with my enjoyment. Once I retired and began close reading, I discovered the introductions can be very informative, especially in putting the stories in historical context. 

I bought the anthology The Dead Witness because of the description above the title: “A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Detective Stories.” I wondered if the connoisseur had included any surprises, if, in fact, he met his aim “to represent the vigor and charm of the Victorian detective story at its best.” Based on the three stories I read for this post, he has done a good job. I chose the stories because the connoisseur claims they were firsts.

***

"The Secret Cell" by William E. Burton (1804-1860) "has never been reprinted prior to its first appearance in 1837." It predates Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," but doesn’t replace Poe as the father of the detective story because it “doesn't challenge Poe's preeminence." 

When her daughter Mary disappears, Mrs. Lobenstein, the unnamed narrator’s former laundress, asks him to find her. He hires a policeman friend, who later in life became “the head of the private police in London,” to find Mary. Their investigation reveals she has been kidnapped. Their search leads them to a “secret cell” on the grounds of a Franciscan Monastery. With the help of more policemen, they storm the fortress to rescue her. 

No way could this story be considered as the template for the detective story. It was published only once probably because it is so badly written. Reading the the first person narrator felt like listening to a garrulous old man. 

An example of the prose style: Mrs. Lobenstein’s husband “had scarcely embraced his family ere he was driven off, post-haste, to the other world....” He died.

The detective story would have been stillborn if Burton had been its father.

***

"The Dead Witness; or, The Bush Waterhole" by W. W. (Mary Fortune 1833-1910), published in 1866 in the Australian Journal is "the first known detective story written by a woman." She published poems and stories using male pen names. When she began writing a series "The Detective's Album" an editor changed Waif Wander to the “genderless W. W.”

Australian police detective Brooke is sent to a small town to find a young artist named Edward Willis who has gone missing for several days. Two clues, a faulty photographic plate and a missing sheep dog, lead him to a waterhole where blood was found on the ground. While he and the shepherd Dick watch the sheep drink, a corpse rises to the surface--the dead witness. A good story, though the long, well done descriptions of the scenery seem, at times, to be padding. I downloaded three of Fortune’s novels that are in the public domain from University of Adelaide Library.

***

“An Intangible Clue" by American Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) features her female detective Violet Strange. Green was the first woman to write “a full-fledged detective novel”, (The Leavenworth Case published in 1878) and supposedly influenced Agatha Christie. 

The editor disagrees with some critics that The Dead Letter  by Seeley Regester (pen name of Metta Victoria Fuller Victor) was the first “book-length detective story by a woman.” He argues that it is not a true detective story because the detective uses the psychic visions of his daughter to solve cases, and Regester was "an inferior writer who depended upon coincidence, exhibited little wit, and had a poor sense of pacing." 

Violet Strange, a socialite good at solving crimes, works part time for a private detective firm but doesn't want to get her hands dirty solving "low-down crime." To persuade her to help the police with the case of an old woman who was brutally murdered in her home, her boss claims that a box with her name on it was found in the house. She realizes that he in fact wrote her name on the box. At the crime scene, pretending to be a curious, dainty woman as a policeman leads her about the house, she immediately identifies the clues that lead to the apprehension of the murderer. 

I downloaded some of the Violate Strange stories from the Gutenberg Project and included them in my to-read file.

***

Women have come a long way. Today, no editor or publisher would dare suggest a woman use a male or genderless pen name to get published, would he?

I hope you all had a