Five days ago, July 27, 2013, I sent my first queries for my debut novel, The Willard. Yesterday I got my first rejection. It was very nice, telling me the work didn’t “grab” her and that I deserve “an enthusiastic agent who will champion my work.” In other words, not this agent.
Today, before lunchtime, I got two more rejections. That’s three, if you’re counting, which prompted me to initiate a Google search for “cost of self-publishing.” I have decided that as long as there is one agent left who hasn’t rejected me I will have hope. I have also decided that my career is dead, the idea for the book was bad, the writing is terrible, and my novel is basically a shameless regurgitation of every cliché I’ve ever read. I flip-flop on which of these two determinations works for me. Right now the second one is leading by a nose.
I’m glad I wrote the book. Now it’s out of my head and on the page and I don’t have to come to the end of my life wondering what would have happened if I had tried. On the other hand, opening oneself up for rejection of this scale is deeply masochistic at best. It’s like giving a photo of yourself first thing in the morning after a night of binge drinking to a slew of cynical, caustic comics and telling them to do their worst. In front of a live audience. And those catty girls from high school.
So now I begin this narrative to follow the course of my road to publishing, or to perdition, whichever this turns out to be. Interestingly, the first thing that came to mind when the bad news starting rolling in was that I needed to get to my computer and write it all down. For some reason, writing always seems to be my first instinct. Time will tell if it’s an instinct that somebody will pay me for, or just a way to purge myself on paper. There are more agents to query so I must stay focused. Until next time. . . .
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