“Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tag: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Creation of a Type
Exclamation and Laughter
Writers Aren’t People…Exactly
Wise Writer Writes
“The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Hear the Voices
“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Rejected Before Fame
[found on bubblecow.net; by Gary Smailes]
“The list of famous writers who were rejected is long. Rejection and writing go hand-in-hand, but sometimes it feels that those pesky publishers simply don’t know what they are talking about.
We all know that quality of writing isn’t the only reason for reaction. Perhaps your book is not a good fit for the publisher, or the agent is looking for something ‘different’ or your work has just been misunderstood. Yet, no matter what the reason those rejection letters still sting!
Here’s eleven famous writers who were rejected and show that writers might just be right after all…
- Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was turned down 29 times before she found a publisher.
- C.S. Lewis received over 800 rejections before he sold a single piece of writing.
- Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was rejected by 25 publishers.
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times.
- Johathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 40 times.
- Louis L’Amour was rejected over 200 times before he sold any of his writing.
- The San Francisco Examiner turned down Rudyard Kipling’s submission in 1889 with the note, “I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language.”
- An editor once told F. Scott Fitzgerald, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby Character.”
- The Dr. Seuss book, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected for being “too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant selling.”
- George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected with the comment, “It’s impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”
- The manuscript for The Diary of Anne Frank received the editorial comment, “This girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity level.”
I hope that these famous writers who were rejected will give you a little bit of hope on those dark rejection letter days!”
Editing Addict, LLC 