|
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Different ways of responding to rejection
Part of my job at Samhain is to staff the submissions inbox. This mostly involves logging the submissions and passing them on to the acquiring editors. Sometimes it involves answering questions from potential authors - everything from "would this plot element be acceptable to Samhain?" to "how long is your standard contract for?".
It also involves letting authors know if there's a problem with their submission. Sometimes they inadvertently send the wrong format, for instance, or the attachments drop off in cyberspace or come through corrupted.
Sometimes, too, authors send in a manuscript that we don't publish. Most often these are young adult manuscripts, because Samhain used to publish young adult books, although we don't currently do so. We also get submissions for books without romance elements, or comic books, or non-fiction, and in all these cases I send back a fairly standard letter letting the author we can't consider their manuscript.
I also read submissions and send out form rejection letters. I used to work as one of the acquiring editors so I have a fairly good handle on what Samhain is looking for. If a work seems promising I put it back in the slush pile for an acquiring editor to consider. If I know it's not suitable I send a form rejection.
Most authors don't bother replying to either the standard "we can't publish this" letter or the form rejection. Obviously, there's no need to - I assume they just cross Samhain off their list and try their manuscript elsewhere. Some, however, do reply.
This month I've had these type of responses:
(note: I'm quoting no one directly. All these responses are paraphrased not cut & pasted)
Thank you for getting back to me in good time.
Thank you for considering my manuscript. Have a great day!
Thanks for getting back to me. I'm sorry you're not interested in this manuscript, but it's not going to stop me trying to get it published elsewhere.
All these responses are fine. They're not necessary, by any means, but there's no problem with people sending them. And I appreciate the politeness - I've had my share of rejections and I understand how crushing they can be!
This month, however, I've also had these responses (again, all paraphrased):
Screw yourself. You didn't read my book properly you unlettered shallow donkey.
You've lost out.
You lied to me. YOU MAKE MY LIFE VERY HARD AND YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ME OR MY COUNTRY. SCREW YOU.
I would like to point out that my paraphrases use, um, milder language than the originals. I would also like to point out that none of these responses is appropriate. Particularly because two of them were in reply to me saying that I was sorry, we couldn't consider these books because they're something we don't publish.
I mean, really. Do you want your book to be published by a publisher who doesn't publish anything else like that, and therefore has no market for it and no expertise in publicizing that genre? And if you do want us to, do you really think calling the admin assistant names is going to assist you in your goal? And what oh what is wrong with you?
0 comments. Please post yours!
| Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The pursuit of vegetables - a long story with a happy ending.
Back when Abstract was nineteen, he lived with a family who had an allotment. They grew most of their own vegetables, and Abstract, who was between college and work, spent a happy time digging and getting a sun tan. There are pictures of him with a spade, looking very brown (and scarily thin) and happy.
He's always thought he'd like an allotment again, and we both like the idea of being more self-sufficient by growing our own vegetables. And as a wannabe-hippie tofu-knitting Green Party member, I like the idea of being organic and reducing food miles and all that virtuous stuff. So a couple of years ago we (well, he) dug up the scruffy lawn in our front garden and we planted a vegetable garden.
We had a fun time marking out plots - one for each member of the family - and choosing and planting seeds. And it was initially nice to see the little seedlings pop up.
But after that, oh my goodness, the fun stopped. I wasn't prepared for how much extra work a vegetable garden is. It's like having a huge extra pet, except one that doesn't lick your hand and purr at you.
We got weeds that outgrew - and swamped - the vegetables. We didn't manage to harvest the spinach quickly enough and it bolted. Gloworm's vegetables decided not to grow at all. An army of slugs set up camp in Sparkler's pak choi. We did all the organic-type things we could manage to repel them - I can't bear to use slug pellets, quite apart from the danger they are to birds - but it was no good. The potatoes grew deformed, with skin that looked as if it was covered in warts. And everything was covered with soil that I knew was contaminated by the various local cats using the nicely dug earth as a litter tray, so I was aware that even washing off the visible dirt wouldn't necessarily get the disease-causing cat-faeces germs off the leaves.
I'm sorry to have to admit that the last straw was when I was preparing some well-chewed-looking pak choi for dinner, and found that it was not only covered with bugs but that it was home to two slugs and a worm. I don't mind slugs or worms in their rightful place, but I object intensely to them appearing in the food I'm about to eat. So I dropped it all in the sink and burst into tears. And that was the end of the vegetable garden.
Our front garden is now a pleasantly sterile wasteland of grey slate, with two neat little flowerbeds, a cherry tree, and lavender plants in pots. There may be slugs and worms and bugs living in it, but they don't visit my kitchen so I really don't care.
What made me sad was that I was back to buying plastic-wrapped not-necessarily-local food from the supermarket. I'd wanted to join a box delivery scheme for ages, but despite living right bang in the middle of farmland, I couldn't find one that delivered to us. In the autumn I see trucks of potatoes and onions go past my house - I could go out onto the main road and pick up a day's supply from the ones that bounce off the truck - but could I get any delivered to my house? No.
I was excited to find out that our local milkman would deliver a weekly organic veg box, and ordered that three times. Except that the Thursday box invariably turned up on Saturday (in response to us phoning every time), having sat in a warehouse for two days, and the veg was slimy and floppy and bug-ridden and really really so not worth it.
So I gave up on that idea.
But at Christmas my sister-in-law told me about a box scheme they used, from a company called Riverford. And oh joy, they delivered in our area!
I started using them in January, and they are awesome. They have a whole variety of different boxes you can order, from a mini box suitable for just one person, to a huge box containing ten different vegetables that's meant for a hungry family of four, and you can have whichever box you want each week. You can also make up your own box from their available products, which include fruit and dairy products and wine and beer and chocolate and dried fruit. Most of the veg and fruit is locally grown, but the stuff that won't grown in England or that's out-of-season is slow-freighted from other countries - as close by as possible.
It's all organic, the stuff from outside the UK is fairly traded, and it's wonderful quality as well. I've found a total of six bugs on lettuces so far, and two miniscule (and very cute) snails on the outer leaf of a cabbage. The root veg tends to be very muddy, but it's clean mud and comes off easily, so I don't mind. We've been able to try interesting short-season things, too, that I tend not to see in the supermarket, like wild garlic and wet garlic. And the best asparagus ever - expensive (as it is in the supermarket) but so worth it.
This was my medium fruit and veg box last week.
It's got spring onions, courgettes, pointed cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, Fairtrade bananas and rhubarb. They were all super-fresh and they taste wonderful. The packaging is all recylable or compostable or reusable and recyclable (like the box which they pick up the next week). The little bit of paper you can see underneath the box is the weekly newsletter, which comes with a bunch of recipes specially tailored to the seasonal vegetables you're likely to get each week.
It's been an interesting challenge for me to have to base our meals around the vegetables that turn up each week, rather than planning meals and adding veg as an afterthought. And I've offered my family some less-than-appealing meals, like Scotch Broth that was so disgusting no one except Abstract could eat it, and vegetable goulash that was just completely bland. And sometimes I've managed it badly and the compost bin has been fed with past-their-best beetroots and swede.
But we've discovered some great new meals, too (roasted winter roots with sausages, apple and celericac soup, broccoli and cauliflower gratin, colcannon with cheese), and rediscovered some veg-heavy favourites (vegetable casserole with cheese and herb dumplings, low-fat chilli, puff-pastry vegetable and cheese tart, and something I like to disguise with the name Golden Sunshine Vitamin Soup. "Yes, but what's in it, Mum?" "Golden sunshine vitamins, darling.").
And it does kind of make cooking more interesting. However easy the meal (pasta, pasta, pasta), I get bored cooking it if I've done it too many times. So having to put extra effort into using up Jerusalem artichokes or carrots or celeriac might be harder work than shoving pasta into boiling water, but it's much more interesting.
This week,though, I made up my own box out of stuff I specially wanted. Portobello mushrooms, new potatoes, wet garlic, cucumber, tomatoes, asparagus and blueberries. We're going to try one of the Riverford recipes with the new potatoes, and have it with garlic mushrooms and poached eggs. Then at the weekend we're having asparagus tarts and blueberry muffins. I love my veg box.
0 comments. Please post yours!
| Saturday, May 15, 2010
Unexpected presents
The Model Auntie and Dr T-shirt bought me an authentic Bakewell pudding from Bakewell, and sent it to me in the post so it arrived unexpectedly this morning. I was surprised and happy!
Lucy the cat, not to be outdone, killed a mouse, refrained from eating it (as she would normally do), and left it on our bed in a little patch of blood. I appreciated the thought but I would not say I was entirely happy.
0 comments. Please post yours!
| Tuesday, May 11, 2010
This fortnight I have mostly been...
...reading Stephen King books (with a break for Chalet School when I'm eating, cos really, Stephen King and food - not such a good idea). So far I've re-read Lisey's Story, Carrie, Cujo and Firestarter, read The Dead Zone, begun but not finished Insomnia (cos I was bored, sorry Mr King), and am now reading Duma Key. Which I thought would go the way of Insomnia, but I'm actually pretty hooked now so that's good.
...recovering from a weird mini-bug that hit me, most inconveniently, on the day I needed to prepare for Sparkler's fourteenth birthday sleepover party.
...making Delia Smith's chocolate cake, Immi Howson's pizzas, and Sasha Knight's seven-layer avocado dip. All very very good.
...wondering why being ill makes me go such a frightful colour - and why on earth anyone would look at someone like me and have the colour white leap to mind. I suppose to claim your ethnic group is sallow-yellowy-muddy-colour doesn't sound too great, but maybe we could go for Parchment. I can imagine the census boxes now. Black African, Black Caribbean, Pakistani, Chinese, Indian, Parchment British, Parchment Irish, Parchment Other.
...celebrating that, even though the election result is decidedly weird and may or may not be a good thing, we have our first Green MP ever and the BNP didn't gain any seats at all.
0 comments. Please post yours!
| |
Scented Danger
a Red Riding Hood Anthology story
from Drollerie Press
Within the Darkness
Blood of the Volcano
Shadow-Weaver
A Cloak of Feathers
Linked
|
|
