Famous authors, their writings and their rejection letters.

studyingmeblr:

cidermoon:

ramoorebooks:

  • Sylvia Plath: There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.
  • Rudyard Kipling: I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.
  • Emily Dickinson: [Your poems] are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities.
  • Ernest Hemingway (on The Torrents of Spring): It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it.
  • Dr. Seuss: Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.
  • The Diary of Anne Frank: The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.
  • Richard Bach (on Jonathan Livingston Seagull): will never make it as a paperback. (Over 7.25 million copies sold)
  • H.G. Wells (on The War of the Worlds): An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would “take”…I think the verdict would be ‘Oh don’t read that horrid book’. And (on The Time Machine): It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader.
  • Edgar Allan Poe: Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works in which a single and connected story occupies the entire volume.
  • Herman Melville (on Moby Dick): We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenile Market in [England]. It is very long, rather old-fashioned…
  • Jack London: [Your book is] forbidding and depressing.
  • William Faulkner: If the book had a plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions, but it is so diffuse that I don’t think this would be of any use. My chief objection is that you don’t have any story to tell. And two years later: Good God, I can’t publish this!
  • Stephen King (on Carrie): We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.
  • Joseph Heller (on Catch–22): I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.
  • George Orwell (on Animal Farm): It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.
  • Oscar Wilde (on Lady Windermere’s Fan): My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.
  • Vladimir Nabokov (on Lolita): … overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.
  • The Tale of Peter Rabbit was turned down so many times, Beatrix Potter initially self-published it.
  • Lust for Life by Irving Stone was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies.
  • John Grisham’s first novel was rejected 25 times.
  • Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup for the Soul) received 134 rejections.
  • Robert Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) received 121 rejections.
  • Gertrude Stein spent 22 years submitting before getting a single poem accepted.
  • Judy Blume, beloved by children everywhere, received rejections for two straight years.
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle received 26 rejections.
  • Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected 20 times.
  • Carrie by Stephen King received 30 rejections.
  • The Diary of Anne Frank received 16 rejections.
  • Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rolling was rejected 12 times.
  • Dr. Seuss received 27 rejection letters

Now this…THIS inspires me.

Don’t give up people.

(via kurovoid)

Source: ramoorebooks.com

mousathe14:

thetomatowriter:

hirakumblr:

dubiousculturalartifact:

hollowedskin:

merindab:

huffingtonpost:

This Comedian Nails Why The Mental Illness + Creativity Connection is Ridiculous

I used to really worry that medications would harm my creativity and it’s part of why I resisted taking them. It hasn’t. If anything it’s allowed me to be more focused and able to complete things. My imagination hasn’t changed just because I’m on anti-depressants.

a lot of my family didnt want me to start medications because they thought it would impact my ability to create, and I believed them.

Now im getting better and better with my art because i dont have to fight through the brainfog or the constant panic attacks and can dedicate my energy to my work.

Antidepressents didnt take my emotions away, they made them easier to handle.

also Van Gogh was literally in an asylum receiving mental health treatment when he painted ‘Starry Night’.
It was one of the most stable & productive periods of his life, despite the fact that wasn’t hugely effective treatment, because they didn’t really have modern understandings of what things work on mental illness. Like, you know. Medication.

This is why we don’t romanticize mental illness or chronic disease.

ALSO because I am reading a book of his letters right now, Van Gogh himself addressed the idea that the best art came from pain and said that his art tended to suffer when his depression was hitting pretty hard. So don’t even pull that shit where you give his untreated depression credit for his art. Van Gogh would have hated that, and if antidepressants/better treatment of mental illness HAD existed then we might have even more of his work now.

Me medication gets me up in the morning and makes me focused as hell. I have done so much more art and more completed and detailed when I’m like this. I’ve been raised out of depression (kinda) and able to focus entirely on whatever work set to do. It’s how I’m able to get commissions done in pretty much, like, a day.

(via damnitfeelsgoodtobeafangirl)

Source: huffpost

decaheda:

hey. not wanting to date a trans person because they’re trans is actually 100% transphobic. it’s not up for debate. nobody’s saying you have to date every trans person you meet, but let’s say you’re attracted to women, and you meet a cute girl and you hit it off, and you decide not to date her when you find out she’s trans: that’s transphobic! that’s not a preference!!!! you liked her before you found out she was trans!!! the real problem here is you’re not viewing trans women as women (or trans men as men). you’re viewing them as a different gender than their cisgender peers. that’s not okay. trans woman = 100% woman. trans man = 100% man. unlearn your transphobia. trans people are really cool ppl with a neat perspective on life and if you don’t wanna date us because you can’t get over your nasty preconceptions then it’s your loss tbh

(via kurovoid)

Source: retrogaydad