Writerly Wednesday

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First, Jeff at Boys Don’t Read tells it like it is (although with more humor and stronger language than I would probably use): “Rejection: UCLA Didn’t Want Me.”

Guess what, Legion of Curious Assholes: Never ask a writer how their book deal/fellowship application/agent search is going. EVER. We have fragile egos. When we have ANYTHING going for us, we will tell you within two minutes of shaking your hand, or our spouse will bring it up to save us the trouble.

And in case you’re wondering, the worst place to get rejected from film school is Iowa. There you are, rejected, and also in fucking Iowa.

Then, Keith Cronin at Writer Unboxed gives some good advice: “The Rejection Reaction.”

I’m going to call on you to do something else:

Remember that it wasn’t fatal. Remember that you got over it.

Last, in unrelated news, Autumn rants about a certain double standard: “On hating female characters.”

I’d like it if people would, when finding themselves disliking a female character, step back and ask themselves why, and if they would still dislike this character if she were male.


5 responses to “Writerly Wednesday”

  1. Jon Avatar

    Great quotes. So true about writers and their bragging! If not for ourselves, though, what else would we talk about? ;)

  2. linda Avatar

    Interesting! I guess I haven’t run into the phenomenon Autumn ranted about too much; maybe I don’t run in those circles. It’s possible I just haven’t noticed, though.

  3. Anthony Lee Collins Avatar

    I checked out the last link, and I was a bit disappointed that the writer didn’t include any examples. I expect that the premise is correct, but there wasn’t anything there to convince anybody who wasn’t already in agreement.

    Certainly in movies part of the problem is that so often there is only one female character of any significance. If there are a variety (you know, like in life :-) ), then each one can just be who she is (one if the things I’m enjoying about Firefly/Serenity).

    Most of my stories have female leads, too, and I wouldn’t like them anywhere near as much if they were male. :-)

  4. Sonje Avatar

    The home school curriculum we’re using for our first grader makes extensive use of the Grimm’s fairytales. Talk about negative portrayals of female characters! No debating that one, by the way. When a character is fattening a child up in order to put him in the oven, that character is bad, male or female.

    Needless to say, I’ll be changing a lot of the genders in these stories. I have complete control! BWAH HA HA!

  5. Kristan Avatar

    Anthony-
    YES, that was something I loved about Firefly (and Battlestar Galactica). A variety of female characters meant that you could showcase their “strength” in so many different ways.

    Sonje-
    Lol I never considered the power you’d have as a home-schooling parent to do that. Very interesting…