>Once upon a time, if a host of agents and publishers kept kicking your 
manuscript
 >back to your mailbox, it was probably due in no small part to some
lack 
of literary
 >merit.  So you had good reason to connect those rejections to flaws in
your
 >manuscript, and rewrote accordingly.

Those were the good old days, I agree.  But nowadays, you don't get any 
indication of what's wrong.  They'll simply say, "Not right for us at
this 
time."  I've even had writers bring in their own cover letters or first 
pages that have been scribbled on with "Sorry--not for us" or
"NO!!" (in

one case), without even the bare courtesy of one of those quarter-page 
photocopied rejection slips.  It's pretty brutal out there now.

(I know writers have said this forever.  But even the pro markets are 
saying it now.)

With good reason, too. It's difficult to find out why you're not being
published when no one will tell you, or even give a hint.


LJ


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