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.)

In search of rejection

This a word cloud I created using Wordle. I grabbed my book – the whole tamale – tossed it into worlde and this is what came out. The more often a word appears in my book, the larger it will show in the cloud.

If you take a look at the cloud, you’ll know there are games, soccer, parks, friends, and beer in the book. There’s also plenty of trying, things are hard, there are plans, and there are Pirates in New York. And there’s home – the finding of it.

Here’s what’s going on: I’ve written a book and now I’m in the early stages of the torturously slow process of finding an agent. It's going well, but the book business moves at a snail pace.

I’ve queried. I’ve gotten rejected. Twice. But I’ve also queried and gotten requests for more. Twice. I’ve sent more and now I’m trying not to tear the skin off my thumbie as I wait to hear back from them.

I also had an amazing meeting with someone who works on the other side of this – on the book buying side – who gave me great advice and offered me some candy. I grabbed onto the promise of that candy like it was the last helicopter out Saigon.

But I haven’t heard back about that candy and I don’t know when I’ll hear back. I’ve been busy following her advice and working on getting short pieces published and on developing the blog, but I need to move beyond that and start getting things done.

Rejection is hard, but I need to stop being such a wimp, leave the comfort of my couch, and get out there. Rejection is good. Rejection puts me in great company, as this post I read today points out. Getting a rejection doesn’t prove anything but if I’m not getting rejected, I’m not querying enough. And I have to query if I want to find an agent.

The holidays are looming and the publishing industry breaks away from their computers and goes caroling. Which means I need to get my ass in gear.

On my to do list for this week: re-work query, send queries out to agents (at least three), finish a first-person essay that’s been lurking in my computer, and run faster.

My objective for December: to get rejected more!