Thursday Thirteen #47 . . . 13 Noteworthy Author Rejections

What aspiring author and writer wanna-be hasn't suffered through the pain of rejection a time or two? Okay, more like 15-20 times and sometimes twice in a single day. Well, no need to despair. In fact, it's happened to some of the best . . .

1) The author of the Dr. Seuss series had his work rejected more than 15 times before he found an editor interested in working with him.

2) Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach was rejected 140 times before it was eventually published.

3) C.S. Lewis received over 800 rejections before he made his first sale.

4) 20 publishers rejected William Golding’s Lord of the Flies before it was published in 1954. On of the publishers who rejected the Lord of the Flies described it as, "…an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull."

5) Agatha Christie has been called by the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling writer of books of all time and the best-selling writer of any kind, along with William Shakespeare. However, her first mystery novel received over 20 rejections.

6) James Patterson’s first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, was rejected 26 times before finally being accepted.

7) Stephen King received the following rejection for his bestselling novel, Carrie: “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell."

8) J.K. Rowling spent six years writing the first installment of her Harry Potter" novels, and was rejected by 9 publishers before landing a deal with London’s Bloomsbury Publishing.

9) Alex Haley, author of Roots, wrote every day, seven days a week for eight years before selling to a small magazine.

10) Ray Bradbury has had about a thousand rejections over his 30 year career and claims his work still gets rejected

11) Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind was rejected 38 times.

12) Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time was rejected by 26 publishers. After being published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, it went onto to win the Newberry Award and it is now in its 69th printing.

13) Louis L’Amour who has 300 million copies of his 123 books in print, had 200 of his stories rejected before he finally made his first sale.

So, if you're thinking about giving up, don't! Keep writing, working on your craft and submitting your work. All you need are equal portions of luck and talent and a whole lot of persistence . . .

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Thursday Thirteen # 43 . . . 13 Quotes by Authors & Writers

The following are 13 of my favorite quotes by Authors & Writers.

1) If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." --Toni Morrison

2) Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." — Kurt Vonnegut

3) Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." --Albert Einstein

4) Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."

--Flannery O'Connor

5) "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." — Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

6) Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open." — Natalie Goldberg Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within)

7) "When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing. " — Octavia E. Butler(Fledgling

8) Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices." —Pearl Cleage (Deals With the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot

9) "In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

--George Orwell

10) "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." "--Maya Angelou

11) "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." Ralph Waldo Emerson

12) "A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."

--Elbert Hubbard

13) "Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." — Robert A. Heinlein

Do you relate to any of the quotes on my list? Are there any quotes by authors you'd care to share?

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