EMOTICONS: The New Form Rejection

“Due to the high level of submissions we receive on a daily basis, we regret to inform you that we are incapable of sending you as many hugs and kisses as this form rejection might require.”

“OMG YOUR QUERY IS SO AWESOME YOU’RE SO AWESOME WE’D TOTES LOVE TO READ UR MS ZOMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

“Oh you’re a tricky querier, aren’t you? You thought you could trick us with your fancy coffee cup and bleached white flour and granola bars and long stemmed roses! But your bedazzled query letter can’t fool us! This is DEFINITELY a form rejection!”

“WE ARE LAUGHING FAR TOO HARD TO RESPOND RIGHT NOW!”

“This message has been automatically generated because we are currently on hold with our lawyers. Someone from our legal department will be in touch soon.”

 

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WRITER.

1. Wake up in the morning and check your email.

2. Greet your Significant Other/Cat/Dog/Armadillo.

3. Check your email again and then IMMEDIATELY refresh your inbox just in case you missed something.

4. Refresh one more time just to be absolutely sure!

5. Step away from your email for a moment only to glance back right before the screen is out of sight. You can never be too sure.

6. THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE HEARD SOMETHING THAT SOUNDED LIKE A PING AND RUN BACK TO YOUR EMAIL!

7. Disappointment.

8. Remember that your trusty Smart-Phone-of-Choice also houses your email!

9. Refresh Refresh Refresh.

10. Remember that you have to go to work.

11. Reluctantly step away from your inbox to change but run back every few seconds just to check. 

12. AN EMAIL OMG I ONLY STEPPED AWAY FOR A SECOND AND THERE IT IS!!

13. Gleefully open email!

14. DAMN YOU BORDERS IF YOU SEND ME ONE MORE EMAIL ABOUT THO-- Oh! It's a coupon! BUT STILL WHAT THE HELL BORDERS STOP TEASING ME.

15. Duck out remorsefully to brush your teeth or somesuch.

16. Realize you need to use the bathroom but consider abstaining so you may stay closer to your inbox.

17. Compromise by convincing yourself something magical will appear in your inbox during your absence.

18. Busy yourself with thoughts of MAGICAL emails appearing in your inbox whilst in a state of being-in-the-bathroom.

19. RUN BACK TO YOUR INBOX because it's been a WHOLE 5 MINUTES YES YOU COUNTED and expect to find yourself completely overwhelmed by the full requests/agent offers/book deals/free money/etc. that have been waiting ALL THIS TIME for the exact moment you take a 5-minute bathroom break to appear in your inbox. TRICKSY INBOX!

20. Feel your hopes and dreams COMPLETELY shattered because you built such high expectations for your return from the bathroom.

21. Click on the one email in your inbox.

22. It's from THIS GUY.

23. Consider breaking your computer.

24. DRIVE TO WORK AND THINK OF NOTHING BUT YOUR INBOX.

25. MENTALLY REFRESH YOUR INBOX.

26. Realize you've arrived at work and haven't checked your inbox ONCE, so surely there are hundreds waiting by the time you get to the office.

27. Pour coffee.

28. Stare at inbox.

29. Go on Twitter to complain about your inbox.

30. Read blogs about others empathizing with your inbox problems.

31. Read on Twitter that EVERYONE IS MAD AT GMAIL! OMG THIS MUST BE THE PROBLEM! THE REASON WHY YOUR INBOX IS EMPTY! ALL THOSE FULL REQUESTS AND BOOK DEALS LOST IN CYPERSPACE!!

32. Shake your fist at the world.

33. Self-sympathize. The world is obviously against you and your literary genius.

34. Refresh Refresh Refresh.

35. Pour more coffee.

36. HATE YOUR WORK EMAIL FOR BEING SO FULL WHILST YOUR AUTHOR EMAIL IS SO NEGLECTED.

37. Realize you're jealous of all the other people in the office who don't have your problems.

38. Comfort yourself with the thought that once Gmail is fixed, all those Agent Offers will pour in.

39. Fantasize for a moment about the 15 Agents who will fight over you.

40. Remember you're supposed to be working.

41. Work a little.

42. Realize your coffee tastes like cold dirt.

43. Drink it anyway.

44. Answer a work email AND SEE SOMETHING FLASH OUT OF THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE AND NEARLY BREAK YOUR NECK as you try to check your Author email.

45. Nope. It was just a stupid advertisement blinking in the background.

46. Curse all things sparkly and shiny.

47. Think of Edward Cullen.

48. Remember Stephenie Meyer's success.

49. Cry a little.

50. Tweet about an empty inbox for sympathy.

51. No one @ replies you for comfort.

52. Feel all alone in this world.

53. Try to remember a time when you didn't care about your inbox so much.

54. Can't.

55. Cry a little.

56. DECIDE WRITING IS NOT FOR YOU. BLINK AND REMEMBER YOU HAVE PARENTS/FRIENDS/LOVED ONES somewhere within a 5-10 mile radius and realize you haven't talked to them about normal human things in a LONG TIME.

57. Feel slightly liberated.

58. Begin to see the light.

59. Fantasize about giving up and being "normal". Maybe you'll go see a movie tonight. Call an old friend. Get dolled up for Chatroulette. THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT.

60. YOU'RE GOING TO BE SOMEBODY. MAYBE AN ASTRONAUT.

61. Writing isn't for everyone.

62. Besides, queries are hard.

63. You didn't even really care, ANYWAY. 

64. Yeah.

65. Pretend not to care.

66. Pretend so hard you begin to believe it.

67. PING.

68. BREAK EVERY TENDON IN YOUR BODY AS YOU STRAIN TO CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

69. Heart racing a zillion times a minute.

70. Throat dry. Hands shaking.

71. It's not THIS GUY. It's not Borders. It's not a credit card bill.

72. CLICK OPEN.

73. Dear Bestie,

Would love to take a look! Please feel free to send it along - electronic attachment would be great.

Best, Agent Awesome.

74. Cry a little.

75. Who are you kidding?

76. CRY A LOT.

77. Forget everything about friends, family, cats and Chatroulette.

78. YOU ARE A WRITER, DAMMIT. 

79. YOU WILL NEVER GIVE UP.

80. YOU LIVE FOR THESE MOMENTS.

AND YOU'LL DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.

everyday.

everyday.

everyday.

everyday.

because one day that email will say "I love this! I'd like to talk about representation!" 

yup.
i promise.

REASON #9324837465 WHY YOU ARE AMAZING.

ARE YOU THERE, JANDY? it's me, Tahereh

Dear Jandy,

If you're out there, I hope you can hear me. 
If you're out there, I hope you get this. 
If you're out there, I need you to know I think you're brilliant. 

I read your book three days ago and I haven't stopped thinking about it. I can't get your words out of my head, I can't stop thinking about Gram, I can't wash the scent of lilacs from my skin and to be honest I don't really want to. What I want to do is run through the rain and meet Lennie for only a moment. I want to tell her she's imperfectly incredible. I want to tell her I wish we were friends, that I wish I knew her, that we can be sisters because I don't have a sister either. I want to tell her that everything is going to be okay, that Bailey is gone but death doesn't mean eternal unhappiness. I want to sit in her tree and listen to her play the clarinet and I want to punch Rachel in the nose. I want to eat ash with Big, I want to see Joe bat those lovely eyelashes and I want to hear him play guitar with John Lennon.

I want to smell Gram's roses for real.

I'm aching to sit in The Sanctum and lock myself in a closet with Lennie. I want to be the friend Sarah couldn't really be for her, I want to help Toby heal, I want to find my way to the bedroom in the middle of the forest and I want to paint my house orange. 

I want to drink-in the stars you poured down from the sky.

I think your words are incredible. I thought your story was painfully beautiful. I laughed out loud and held back tears and swallowed the tangible emotions tumbling through your prose. I wanted to catch the words as they fell from your book. I wondered forever what it'd be like to vacuum up the horizon.

But after I finished the story I held it in my hands and wondered why I was so emotional and I realized then, I realized in that moment that I'd never again experience the thrill of meeting Lennie and Gram and Joe Fontaine and Big with his squirrel mustache for the first time and it broke my heart. I wanted to hide in Gram's pocket, I wanted to camp-out in the attic, I wanted to be the kind of human-being made entirely of letters, the kind of human-being crafted from words that would fit in the margins of your book. 

Mostly, I wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for reminding me that one sentence can be just as beautiful as Joe's smile. Thank you for taking my breath away with the kind of love I haven't seen in so long, with the kind of ache I still feel in the pit of my stomach, with the kind of family so real I could reach out and touch them, each of them, hug them right around the middle.

Thank you for reminding me why writers are so important.

THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE broke my heart and stitched it back together with guitar strings.

You are incredible in so many ways.

xoxo
Tahereh


---


besties.


i am so ridiculously in love with this book it's kind of embarrassing.
no, wait. it's REALLY embarrassing. it's so embarrassing that i don't even know how to properly articulate how much i love this book. i just really think you should read it. i think you should read about the kind of love and loss that dares you to catch your breath and swallow back the butterflies that feel far too real for fiction. i think you should savor the rich delight of Jandy Nelson's prose.


and i really, really, REALLY want you to love it, too.

so much so that i'm giving away 
3 COPIES TO 3 WINNERS

of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE 
by Jandy Nelson.

all you have to do is make sure you're a follower of this blog, and leave me a comment in the form of a book recommendation. because obviously i want to eat books for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and i'd like your input! promotion isn't necessary, but if you do blog or tweet or stand on a mountain and scream about it, please let me know in the comments.


for extra entries:


+1 for every time you link to me on your twitter, facebook, etc. (please linksy so i can find it! and i'll give you up to 5 extra entries :D)
+2 for linking to the contest on your blog.


and kindly add up your total entries in the comments! i don't know anything about numbers, that's why i'm a writer, and that's why a random number generator will do the rest. hehe.

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.
contest closes at 11:59 P.M. (PST) 
on Sunday, June 6, 2010.

and just in case you're wondering, here's the book blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey's boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie's own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they're the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can't collide without the whole wide world exploding.

<333333