On Pre-Rejecting

I said it on a message board, and I’ll say it here: For the love of all that’s writerly, don’t pre-reject yourself! 

On the various boards I visit, it seems like there’s a never ending stream of people who are waffling about what they want to write, because they’re afraid it’s not marketable.

“Should I include consensual incest in my novel?  I’m afraid it’ll turn publishers off.”

“Should I write my vampire novel?  There are so many out there right now.”

“Should I write space opera?  I hear that genre gets a bad rap.”

The answer to all these questions is so simple: Follow your bliss.  If you are passionate about it, do it.  Do it!  Do it!

Only you know best how to tell the story that’s inside you.  Yes, critiques and such help you unveil it to the world, but in the end it’s still yours, and you need to be proud of what you’ve created.  That means including everything you think adds to the story.

The other day, my brother said he was bored during his lunch breaks.  So I told him to take a hacky-sack to work and ask if someone wanted to play with him.  He shook his head.  “The guy’s at work don’t like that kind of thing.”

“Oh really?” I said, “Have you asked them?”

 “No, but they’re just not that type of people.”

My response, “How do you know?”

He didn’t have to get rejected by his coworkers because he did it for them.  He tried to use ESP to gauge what they wanted without actually asking what they want.  Don’t be him.  Don’t assume you know what agents and publishers are looking for and pre-reject your work before you send it, or even--heaven forbid--before you write it.

Yes, paying attention to the market is good.  Doing your research in likes and dislikes of agents and editors is good.  But don’t assume you can read their minds.  What, there’s no clause on the submissions page that strictly forbids you from ever sending them a manuscript in which incestuous vampires battle aliens in a game of space-chess for the known universe?  Well then, why wouldn’t you send them such a story?

Write what you want to write.  It’s your passion that makes a story shine.  If it’s amazing, people will read it.  Trust in your bliss.  Trust in your hard work.  Just trust yourself. 

We’re all in this because we love what we do, no?  Kill your darlings, not your passion.  :-D

~Marina

Rejections, goal of 100: 32