“It is interesting and has several good points, but it is not quite suitable for our list.”
---from a letter to Agatha Christie, 1920,
for The Mysterious Affair at Styles
(The first of many cases featuring the fastidious
Belgian private investigator, Hercule Poirot)
.
“...Neither long enough for a serial nor short enough for a single short story”
---from a letter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887,
for A Study in Scarlet
“It is not at all probable, we think, that we can make use of the story of a Virginia soldier of fortune miraculously transported to Mars…”
---from a letter to Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912,
for Under the Moons of Mars
(serialized in All Story; later published in book form as
A Princess of Mars, the first title in an eleven-book series)
.
“A very bad book” ---from a letter to Pierre Boulle, 1954, for The Bridge on the River Kwai
Wise Words:
Wise Words:
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
---Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
Life (1932)
Life (1932)
.
4 comments:
It's good to discover that even those that have a genuis in writing got turned down now and again! I hope in a hundred years or so that someone is quoting my rejections when my works are that famous (with some of them first appearing with DLP) ;-)
Hi Glynn,
That may be why, like most writers, I try and save all my rejection slips. Then again, I may just be a pack rat.
I only save the polite rejections Tom!! Maybe i should keep the rude ones too!
Yeah, after your writing becomes wildly popular -- I say wildly, since you already enjoy some popularity with your stories -- the rude ones will be the most entertaining. Btw, THE KING OF DEADTOWN hits the street today. I'll ship your contributors copies tomorrow. Looks great!
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