Rejection: it works!

Last night I got my first real rejection email. It was a lovely one and though I know it might have been a copy paste job I don't care. The email let me down gently and was so encouraging I didn't really mind (much) that it was a rejection.

This was from the more surprising of the partial requests which might be why I'm not upset. It had been an agency submission where I had filled out a form online hoping to reach Agent B, but it was Agent A who wrote to me and asked for more. I got excited - of course I did - I've heard great things about Agent A and he seems great, but he's not my dream agent. And I'm ok with that.

Or maybe it's just all that running. Not just the running helps you cope with anxiety thing but something else that I've found out through running races: being on the receiving end of cheering makes a difference to me.

Random strangers cheer for you when you're running a race:
"You look great!"
"Good job"
"Keep it up!"
"Looking good!"

The first time I found it strange. How do they know I look great? What if I usually look better and this is terrible for me? Turns out it doesn't matter because I don't care. It feels good to have others cheer for you even if they're strangers.

I know these are anonymous cheers but it's still good will being sent my way and I soak it up, just like I'm soaking up Agent A's encouragement. Sure, he might not have written that email just for me but that doesn't mean he didn't mean it and now that I don't have the hope of his acceptance dangling like a carrot, I need to majo up and get more queries out there.

(Note on the picture: that's not the rejection email but a visual of my working style.)