Monday, September 2, 2013

On Rejection

I've finally begun querying, and like everyone else who's in this stage, I received my first rejection letter. I thought I'd be more upset about it. But I'm not. Actually, I'm not upset about the rejection at all. Actually, I'm shocked with myself that I'm not bothered by it. Seriously.  When that letter came in my inbox a few nights ago, I had to dig through my mental file cabinets just to make sure I wasn't lying to myself. I'm not. It doesn't bother me. Wow.

I don't know why it doesn't bother me.  Maybe I've done a sufficient job convincing myself that rejection is part of the job, which it is. Maybe it's because I've been turned down through so many writing and pitch contests that I'm beginning to become desensitized to rejection. Maybe it's because it wasn't a form rejection. I'm searching through those file cabinets and I can't pinpoint the reason. Huh.  Go figure.

It's like I almost want to be upset, and I'm trying to find a reason to be upset but can't. This isn't me. I worry. I overthink. I get upset. Except not this time. Who are you, and what have you done to April?

So that was my first response--or lack of response. My second response was: YAY! I mean, how cool is that? I've joined the same club all my favorite authors have joined. And yeah, I'm kind of official now. I'm not just playing around at being a writer anymore. I'm out there, making the make, doing the do.

And so, along with this YAY! was a, how cool is it that, out of all the rejection letters for me to first receive, it wasn't a form rejection? This agent took time out of her busy life to reply to me! Kudos to awesome agent Suzie Townsend. So, you won't be my agent, but that's okay. You rock. You didn't tell me my query letter was crummy. You didn't even tell me that you didn't think my novel wasn't a good fit for you. You told me you didn't think LitD would sell given the current market. And that's cool. You've got to make a living. That is something I can totally respect. So a great big huge sincere thanks. You're awesome. :)

So yeah. I'm overly pleased with this whole thing. It doesn't make sense, but I am.

I'm actually floating on some sort of weird distorted cloud. The cloud should be cliche, because everyone floats on clouds, but it's not because I shouldn't feel this way about rejection.

So yeah. That's all I've got right now.

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