Haters gonna hate.

I felt the need to wonder aloud why everyone seems so bent out of shape over this whole new cover of J.K. Rowling's next book The Casual Vacancy. 

In case you've missed the bazillion tweets about it and blogs displaying it, here it is again:

Now, my first thought was... Okay. JK Rowling's new book is clearly Gryffindor.

My second thought was... the synopsis doesn't sound that great.

But I don't necessarily hate the cover. I mean, sure it's a little... minimalist, but not bad. I mean, some of my favorite books of all time have very simple covers. For example:

                and

But the lack of color and drama that usually graces the cover of novels doesn't make me hate this new book. 

I mean sure, if I was shopping in a book store, it wouldn't make me necessarily jump to try and read it.

However, it's not like J.K. Rowling has to try and appeal to fans. She already has a fan base. Millions of people will read her new novel whether or not it's good and whether or not the cover is Gryffindor.

Do people hate it because after such a crazy build up of Harry Potter adventuredom, they want to be WOW-ed and reassured again that the author of their favorite childhood protagonist wont let them down?

Or do people want an extravagant cover to make up for the lack of appeal in the novel's description?

Tell me. 

What do you hate about J.K. Rowling's new novel The Casual Vacancy?

Do you like it or hate it? Why?

The struggle never dies.

So, for the longest time, I thought that writing was difficult. I struggled writing my novels, struggled figuring out the characters and the plot. But something I wasn't prepared for was the difficulty that came AFTER I had finished my novel.

Now, with a completed novel, I have begun sending out inquiries to agents to see if I could get some representation and get published. However, I am beginning to feel discouraged.

I understand that these people see thousands of manuscripts and I am sure that out of these thousands, very few are good. However, this is what they signed up for. The day that they decided that they would be agents, was the day that they commited to get thousands of unwanted writings arriving in the mail or via email. However, I can't help but to compare this to the celebrities that complain about being famous...it just comes with the territory.

Now what I can't stand, is the impersonal nature of the rejections. If I spend 30 minutes, personally curtailing a query to an agent, I am astounded that they can't even spend the time to cut and past my name into a pre-existing rejection letter and call it a day! I have gotten several: "Dear Author, We apologize for the impersonal nature of this rejection."

Hmmm....

I apologize that you're an asshole.

Believe me, this is not about my rejections. I can handle those. I just wish that some agents could pull their heads out of their asses and act human. After all, almost everyone on this planet is.