Don’t Write Slush
Oh, the dreaded slush pile! One of my first jobs in publishing (at Penguin USA, way back in 1990) was to maintain the slush pile, a 6-foot wide, two-door closet piled thigh-high with hundreds of thin and fat, sliding envelopes, each containing somebody’s best story. Slush is the word coined long, long ago to describe that unstackable pile of envelopes. We kept them in these huge cardboard moving boxes and just grabbed them by the armload to read and review. I read some, but contracted most out to a couple freelance editors who wrote reviews of any manuscripts with promise. But, only rarely did a story actually come to my desk from the slush pile. The most intriguing story from the pile that year was a long, rambling, disjointed-dream, story poem written by Jerry Garcia which was purchased at an auction by Tommy Smothers. It was just awful and Tommy wanted to turn it into a children’s book! I had a great conversation with Tommy about the unsuitability for children of pretty much anything written by the Grateful Dead’s Garcia. “Yeah, I knew it was rough in spots, but you know, I was hoping some of it could be used.” I have no idea what happened to the story after that. I’m sure it’s sitting in a drawer or a box somewhere in Tommy’s house.
A famous man bought another famous man’s story and still couldn’t sell it. So, if you’re not famous and aren’t selling something by someone famous, your writing has to be BRILLIANT to get pulled from the slush pile. Brilliant writing sounds like no one else. Brilliant writing has something unique that sets it apart from the rest. Brilliant writing shines through the envelope and catches the reader in their first glance at the text. That’s the power of a writer’s voice.