Part of being a writer means developing a thick skin along with your writing skills. Rejection is an inevitable part of the business; I get that. Agents need to be particular about who they represent and should only sign on to projects that have a good shot of being published.
Or so I keep telling myself.
I started querying my debut novel in April of 2016. During the last two years and four months, I’ve been in contact with 33 literary agents — all of whom have passed on this project. The latest one came this morning, and I was surprised at how emotional I was to get her rejection. She sent along a detailed list of suggestions and agent feedback (which I was not expecting and was thrilled to receive). As soon as I get done feeling sorry for myself, I’m going to run her ideas past my critique group and think about a re-write.
Pretty sure it’s time for a new title — something to acknowledge that SETH 2.0 is going to be a new and improved version of the original manuscript. While nobody looks forward to summer coming to an end, I think there’s beauty in the timing in that my girls will be back in school full time in a matter of weeks. That’s when it’s time for this writer to get back to work.
I leave you with two thoughts. The first is a quote I found by Eleanor Roosevelt:
With a new day comes new strengths and new thoughts.
The second is more of an anecdote. This spring, I was fortunate enough to be included in a relay team of distance runners, all of whom graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. I say I’m fortunate to be included because the other runners are all decades younger than me. Anyway, on part of this year’s race course, our team member got stopped by a train. Our closest competitors got through. While we sat there in the van, stopped in a line of traffic at the tracks, we could all sense our teammate’s frustration as she stomped and waited impatiently for the train to pass, knowing how much harder she was going to have to work to make up the time lost by this unforeseen delay.
I’m feeling much like that runner these days. There seems to be a string of obstacles blocking my path to success and publication. And even after the obstacles clear, there’s still going to be a crap ton of work to do to regain my momentum and get myself back in the running. But no train goes forever; they all eventually have a caboose, last I checked. So I’m taking a cue from my Little Debbie teammate and doing what she did when the train finally cleared — tightened up her ponytail and took off strong.
Sept. 4 is the first day of school for my girls and ponytail-tightening day for me.