Frankenstein's monster wasn't popular...

So what do you do when you've written something you rather like and you've shopped it round a few places and you think you have something there but no one in commercial publishing agrees. After you've swigged a few bottles to dull the pain of your grief over the rejection you re-read their rejection letters/e-mails to check whether anyone has said "I would take another look at this if...." and if their suggestion is not an affront to your moral compass and doesn't turn your teenage romance into a slasher zombie horror (unless you'd considered making this change anyway) you do your best to edit your work and send it back ASAP. Saying "I'll take another look" is the publishing equivalent of gold and should not be dismissed lightly. Try and avoid taking years to edit and reply: publishing staff, book trends, and remembering you and your ms will all change and fade. If other stuff is happening in your life that affects your ability to rework and resend drop them a line and say you are making changes and intending to resubmit as soon as you are able.

If your rejection was a form one, the best next course of action is to work on new material. Reworking old material can lead you down a blind alley you might get lost in. Reworked material can come out looking like Frankenstein's monster - he wasn't popular. Take what you've learnt from writing that ms and apply it to a new story. You need more than one story. If all you ever have is one story, if a publisher does say yes at some point you have no other work to show them and will have months, if not years ahead of you, to produce something else. If your first published piece does well and readers are keen to see more of your writing, you will lose the opportunity to wow them with your next book because it might be three or four years away. Be prepared. Keep writing new material. But never throw out the old things either. Their day may come. Nothing is ever wasted.

When the writing isn't happening take a holiday in your bottom drawer...

So when the writing is slow I find myself drifting back to check out old material. I find myself staring wistfully at things that seemed a lot easier to write way back when (although like one of those perpetual reflections i probably turned away from those stories to stare wistfully at things written even further back in time - like the dark ages). This has the potential to be another unproductive distraction, or, as happened to me last weekend it could be like striking a seam of coal in the depths of a mine. While rootling around for no good reason (apart from the pretence of domestic industry) in some old papers I came across a letter from a publisher, the main thrust of which was to advise me of the illustrator they'd selected for my picture book Clever Moo (Scholastic, 2006). But as I let my eyes trail idly down the page I spied a sentence which referred to another picture book submission I'd made. The story had potential but there were some issues. It was going to be discussed further. A month later I received a form rejection and because I was a bit green back then I let it go. I put the story away. Now, with the benefit of a little experience I would have got back to the author of the original comment and said 'can you tell me what this means' and 'is there anything I can do?' I did do some rewriting and submitting elsewhere to no avail. But last weekend I realised that publisher had seen potential and I would be silly to let the story die quietly in my files. So its gone off to the agent who also thought there was something there. It does need work but its alive again.

I've also resurrected an intermediate level thriller adventure novel. I hadn't realised how much I'd written (around 33 thousand words) and how likeable it was. I'd put it aside because a crucial element at the beginning didn't work throughout the story and needed replacing. The replacement needed to be able to fit with all the other plotting - not an easy task, but after 3 or 4 years I think I now know what might do the trick. And if the fix works I only need about another 5 to 10 thousand words to finish the story (and a bit of spit and polish to tidy things up of course). You never know what you might find when you look at what's in the bottom drawer. Things you'd forgotten about. Little bits of grit which have turned into pearls while your back has been turned and your focus fixed on other things. What were insurmountable obstacles a few years back when you were less experienced can now be seen with an eye and mind that have benefitted from the passing years. Maybe those stories time has come. So sometimes when the writing isn't coming together, when you want to biff the keyboard across the room in frustration and rip Roget in half, take a holiday in the bottom drawer, or under the bed or in the last file pocket of your cabinet. It can be very refreshing.