(no subject)

Miss Snark, she of the stilleto wit, posted a letter from a reader yesterday. If you don't feel like following the link, the letter concerns her use of form-letter rejections for writers whose manuscripts are nowhere near ready to be submitted to editors. The letter writer felt that she ought to offer suggestions for improving each and every rejected manuscript. I've received a ton of those form letter rejections in my time. Yes, they're frustrating. If the editor/agent who rejected me offered personal suggestions on each and every manuscript he turned down, he'd be years behind (and would probably have gone out of business and checked in to a mental institution long before now!)

I like to look at the situation as if it was me in a clothing store. I try on a dress that caught my attention on the hanger. On me, it hangs funny, and there's a wierd fold of fabric where one shouldn't be. The color is all wrong for my complexion. The material is scratchy. When I take it off and give it back to the salesperson, will I list all the things I didn't like about it? Of course not; I just say, "Thanks, but it didn't suit me" and move along to something else. The salesperson knows that someone else might like the dress, or else it'll be pulled from the racks and some other style will take its place.

Either way, there's no point in whining about it.