I've been "away" judging contests, reading books to review, and getting in touch with my MUSE for my current WIP. When hopping about the blogosphere, I found an agent by the name of Nathan Bransford who's with Curtis Brown. Yesterday he posted the question "What's the worst writing advice you've ever been given?"
Well, I hope Mr. Bransford doesn't mind if I paraphrase a few of the most common answers from the 125 comments he got on this topic...yes, I read every one of them! It was illuminating to say the least.
Here's the TOP FIVE that seemed to be repeated over and over:
1) Send your submission in right away because your friend/mother/crit group, think it's "GREAT!".
2) Send a full Manuscript in to an editor/agent when you haven't bothered to query first - sure, they'll take it!
3) My personal favourite: have a published author teaching a class tell you your query letter is "perfect" - submit it only to have it come crashing back in your inbox within two hours, with a "thanks but no thanks & oh, btw, don't bother submitting anything else". Show your query to another published author and she can't believe *anyone* would tell you to send it to *anyone* in the condition it's in.
4) Take out all the COMMAS, DIALOGUE TAGS, NARRATIVE, OR DIALOGUE QUOTATION MARKS.
5) Your professor/creative writing teacher/correspondence writing teacher tells you you have no talent. When you get published, send them a copy of your book cover!
You can find Nathan Bransford at his cool blog here: NATHAN BRANSFORD
I love finding people in the industry who're willing to share their expertise and actually help writers. So, Mr. Bransford, you're being linked to the right, and thank you for taking the time to educate writers about the "biz".
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