5 “no”s in 2 days. note to self: space things out more in the future. as much as i know this is par for the course as a writer, it’s still frustrating at best. at this point i see either wine or ice cream in my near future . . . or both . . .
so, to take the sting out of it all, here is the ursula le guin entry from “one hundred famous rejections“:
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a number of well-known science fiction novels including The Left Hand of Darkness, which went on to win the 1969 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1970 Hugo Award.
But before all that, she faced rejection.
Ursula was kind enough to post a copy of a rejection letter that her agent received for The Left Hand of Darkness on her website, stating, “Because I am a very kind person, I have omitted the name of the Editor and his publishing house. This is included to cheer up anybody who just got a rejection letter. Hang in there!”
As for the rejection letter, it doesn’t get more opinionated than this!
Dear Miss Kidd,
Ursula K. Le Guin writes extremely well, but I’m sorry to have to say that on the basis of that one highly distinguishing quality alone I cannot make you an offer for the novel. The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim legends become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book, eventually, unreadable. The whole is so dry and airless, so lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have had is entirely dissipated by what does seem, a great deal of the time, to be extraneous material. My thanks nonetheless for having thought of us. The manuscript of The Left Hand of Darkness is returned herewith.
Yours sincerely,
The Editor
21 June, 1968