I am grumpy this morning. Like inches away from pouting and sulking and hiding in a corner for the next twenty-four hours. I’m hoping the caffeine and sugar will kick in soon. I’m not sure what set me off, but I think it was a dream I had last night. A friend of mine was ignoring me, except every time I tried to tell her I had to go, then I was interesting to her again. I woke up so very frustrated.

And then it seems like everything since has made me growl. Not big things, either. I suspect if something actually bad were to happen to me right now, I would probably spend the next half hour sobbing in the bathroom.

I say all that not for sympathy (though I wouldn’t turn it away ^_^), but to put my rant in context.

I got feedback on a maybe-first-chapter of one of my novels today (and yes, it was a maybe before the critique. I’ve been thinking of scrapping it for months and starting the story later, but wanted feedback to see if I was right). To the reviewer – I promise this isn’t spurred by you, it’s a seguey. I read the review and I was like “you are so very wrong. You didn’t read it closely enough. That stuff is all there. I know, I wrote it.”

And then I went back and read it. I’ve read this chapter hundreds of times, but this time I did it with valid feedback in the back of my head. And turns out…she was right. When I read her critique there were certain things I kept saying “But I covered that” and when I got back to the story I was like “Oh. I see how that might not be as obvious as I thought.” Because…she can’t read my mind. (I hope. Kate – if you’re in my head, I’m sorry and don’t be scared. I’m only mildly insane, but you should probably back away slowly anyway).

So now I have tweet deck up, and I can hear it chirping, because I’m listening to music (the fact that my monitor has speakers and no headphone jack is a rant for a different day). And I stopped reading tweets about ten minutes ago because of the literary agents.

Normally I agree with the things they complain about. I see the business side of this. (As you may have seen in previous posts). There are things you just don’t do when you’re looking for a job/working with people on a professional level. Common sense stuff.

But today, I disagree. I think too much is being asked of the average writer. I’m not talking about the 1% that stalks everyone professionally related to publishing online. Or even the 85% who have no idea how to approach publishing professionally. Which only leaves 14%, but I’m past caring about statistics right now (told you I was grumpy). 14% of hundreds of thousands is still a lot of people.

I understand why rejections can’t always come with personal feedback. I understand why a pitch, a query letter, a synopsis, are so important. I understand why you don’t want to spam fifty agents with the same form letter and their names all in the ‘To’ or ‘CC’ lines. I get all that and more.

But in a world where speed is key. Where people want everything now. Where if you can’t respond yesterday, you can’t move forward, it’s not unreasonble to see why people think edit requests have to be sped through as quickly as possible. It might seem like common sense to take one’s time, but how long have they already taken? Part of you knows how excited an author gets when they even get a request for a partial. To be asked to make revisions…that’s like fifty more steps toward writer mecca.

I’m not saying it’s right. And I’m not saying I know what kind of basic content goes into a revision request letter, but for the reasonable author, a brief explanation like “please take your time considering these changes. Content is more important than speed.” Something.

And I’ll save the writer’s side of the story rant about getting an offer when your book is still under consideration elsewhere for another day. I’m running out of words today and probably losing your attention.

I dunno. Maybe that’s already in the request. Maybe it’s all been spelled out already and I’m being unreasonable. But when someone asks me to change/modify/edit something at work, they want it yesterday. It’s been that way for all the many years I’ve worked in professional offices. It stands to reason that would carry over to my other business and personal interractions.

Or maybe the blame just lies with corporate America in general for instilling such a spastic sense of urgency in all of us. A scape goat is always good.

I dunno..I should go write my short story about Prometheus. Then I can pour all my negativity into that.

What have you learned from social media about publishing that wasn’t obvious to you before?