Reconstructing Rejection

Another day, another rejection.
I'm pretty much done querying, but every now and again I get the urge to send one out. Just for fun. Because I'm the kind of person who considers getting her hopes slammed into the wall repeatedly 'fun'- which is to say- sadistic. But I just can't seem to stop. It's kind of like slamming your hand in a car door. The first few times it hurts like a bitch. But once you've had all your bones pulverized, it doesn't do much anymore. Just kind of leaves you with you a not entirely unpleasant tingling sensation.

Here's the latest in rejection, I think it's lovely so I wanted to share it:


Dear Randine,

Thank you for your interest in (redacted). Though your novel
sounds like it has potential for the women's fiction market, I regret that
(redacted) must decline a reading of HAVING GRACE. Her fiction list is
keeping her working at capacity, and she would unfortunately not be able
to give your manuscript the attention that it deserves.

I wish you all the best with finding an excellent agent to represent your
work.


It's sad to say because I'm at the point where I actually get pretty pumped about rejection sometimes.
If the rejection letter contains: a) my name
                                              b)the name of my book
                                              c) any kind of statement which seems specific to my project
                                           or d) the trifecta: ALL OF THE ABOVE!!
I get really excited.
Which is rather pitiful, but with so many agents these days moving towards the no response means no,  getting a response at all seems like- I don't know- a privilege. And any kind of personalized response is all the better. And honestly, I can't say that I blame them for going toward not responding. The sheer amount of queries they receive must be totally overwhelming.

So then I try to reconstruct what happened in the office:

October 25: Query received by assistant, Chloe - which ,by the way, love that name. Love it. I even thought about naming Payton Chloe, so I feel like I'm connected her on some level. Mind you, I feel connected with just about anyone who emails me. Even the spammers. Because I don't totally hate the idea of discount Vicodin.
Anyways.
At some point after: Query read by Chloe and flagged as a 'maybe'
(This I deduce because, statistically, most rejections from this agent come faster than mine did. Of course, this could just mean that it was caught in a spam filter, or the assistant was on holidays, or who knows what else. But I dream of a mystical maybe pile that I've heard of in query folklore, which is a step above the slush pile.)
Some point later on: Query passed on to agent as a maybe. Maybe she forwards all of the 'maybe's' as an attachment. Maybe she prints them off and puts them on her desk. Maybe she brings them at some kind of a team meeting. I don't know. Either way, it gets passed along.
Some point later on:  Agent reads query, considers it (briefly) but then decides to pass, telling Chloe to reject it, but nicely.

I think I could have made it as a profiler.

Maybe I was a maybe, I tell myself, after reading it. It sounds pathetic, but hey, at this point, I have to take whatever props I can, meager though they are.

Anyways, at this point, whatevs.
It matters not to me, and I can say this honestly. The fact is, I realized only recently, I trust this crazy process. Trust it like I trust my own mother, which may be understating things since my own mother once almost let me drown to my death in my grandparents swimming pool, but that's beside the point.
The point is, I believe that when I am ready to be published, I will be. And if  I'm not ready, I won't be. Simple as that.
Maybe I'm just not quite there yet.
And that's OK.
Stephen King says the first million words are just practice. Even with all that I've written, this blog included, I'm not quite at a million yet. But I'm getting closer every day.
And when I query again for my next project, I will be much more informed, much more prepared.

Rejection #41 (or thereabouts. I'm losing track. They're all starting to blur together in a big jumble of misery. Sort of like high school.)

Randine,


Thank you for your query. Although your story sounds interesting, I'm not looking for debut fiction at this time.

I appreciate you thinking of (redacted) and me and I wish you luck with your literary pursuits.


The fact that she states she's not looking for debut fiction softens the blow.
This may just be her form, I don't really know.
Anyways, I so love the words "debut fiction" in reference to myself.
It makes it sound sort of awesome.
 
Anyways, that's all for today.
 
Have a good weekend.

My Favorite Rejections

I have, by now, accumulated quite a few rejection letters.
Rejection is rejection, no matter what the wording. But still, some have stung less than others. Some have even made me smile.
These are my two favorite ones:

Randine,


This sounds promising but I'm not really looking for this kind of book right now so have decided to pass. Don't be discouraged -- I'm looking for dark crime and thrillers right now. Your query is quite appealing and I'm positive other agents will reply to it with interest, so keep trying elsewhere.

Best of luck.
Ann Collette

 
 
Dear Author,


Thank you for writing to me about your project. I'm so sorry for the impersonal response, I hate to do this. The Friedrich Agency used to respond directly to each query, but the letters have now reached a volume that is frankly unmanageable. Writing a good book or a good proposal is among the hardest things in the world to do; I promise, we're not unsympathetic! You have our word that we are reading every single query letter that comes our way, but from now on, we're only responding personally if we're sufficiently curious and would like to read further. Please don't take offense at this Draconian measure-- there is undoubtedly a wonderful agent out there for whom your book might just be the perfect match. Toward that end, I wish you all the best of luck!

Take care,
Lucy Carson

I really like the last one here, how it manages to side step an actual rejection.
Clever.
And the first one- so sweetly worded.

That is all for now.
Sorry for the lack of blogging, but life is getting in the way.
Life's a bitch, sometimes. It can be that car that pulls up beside you and smiles politely. Or it can be that car that comes careening into your lane head on, leaving you swerving and breathless and swearing, which is sort of how I'm feeling right now.
Issues for another day, perhaps.
Good night.

Abandoning Hope

I am officially abandoning hope for Having Grace.
When I first started querying for it, I began with high hopes. "How to negotiate an offer of representation" I googled, once upon a time. It seems an utterly pretentious thing to google, doesn't it?? But honestly, I have a tendency to screw the pooch in situations which require intelligent conversation. It comes to mind the time when I got on an elevator with an extremely hot guy. I was carrying up a case of beer. "Big party tonight?" the guy asked me.
A fricking yes or no question.

But all I could think of was the fact that the beer was for my mom, but I didn't want to say "No I'm just carrying this for my mom" cuz that would make me sound like an even bigger loser, so I kind of hesitated, but then it sort of got to the point where it was too late for my to say anything at all.
And then we had to ride seven floors up in silence.
Hence I had visions of myself on the phone with an agent, silence permeating my end of the conversation interrupted briefly by utterances of "Me... Randine"
"Sorry wrong number," they would say.
And click.
I'm sure I could hold my own much better than that. I'm not, after all, a total idiot.
Only a partial one.

Anyways.
Now, three months after sending out my first query and thirty four rejection letters later I google this: "How to get discount Zoloft delivered to my door." Cuz I ain't getting out my pyjamas to go out and buy no Zoloft properly. (Thanks for the heads up on the Zoloft, Nikki)
So at this point I have to consider the fact that either a)it's my query letter or b)it's the genre or c) it's my writing itself.
I don't think it's 'a', because I have had a partial request and a full, and a personalized rejection letter that explicitly states that it isn't my query letter. So that leaves either 'b' or 'c'.

Either prospect is not good.

"Maybe you should write something else. Write about alien abduction, for example," my husband said.
"Alien abduction? Oh, ya, and why don't I just write about lassoing a horse out on the range? Maybe throw a meth lab in there for good measure. An explosion or two and bingo, bango, bestseller."
Although how I could possibly string together a meth lab, an alien abduction and a horse lasso into a plausible story line I have no idea. Again, I was just making a point. The point, in case you're confused, is that I don't and/or can't really choose what I write about.
It chooses me.
And what chooses me tends to be more women's related issues.
Anyways. I'm fine with that. I'll finish Having Faith and then start querying again.
I might also, at some point, try something different, more literary fictiony.
But with a meth lab.
Just kidding.
I don't know.
In the mean time, there's always my day job.
Such as it is.
Anyways- the good news: He changed the light bulb, which is to say- he bought the light bulb!!
So YAY. Now I can laundry well into the evening hours.

Yes, y'all. That's the good news.
F the Zoloft.
Now I'm going to Google"How to get discount razor blades delivered to my door."

I received this (sort of) rejection letter today:

Dear Ms. Sorowski.
Thank you for reaching out to me. I do ask that a sample accompany all queries. Please feel free to resubmit.

First of all- I'm surprised that this isn't a straight out rejection, since I evidently failed to read their submission criteria properly, or even at all, possibly, for all she knows. I'd probably reject myself on that basis alone. Although in my defense, on their website they say "we do not accept unsolicited material", and I thought that meant sample pages, maybe. I didn't know.
And then I thought, wow, I really like the tone of this- "thank you for reaching out to me."

But then I thought- shit. What did I send her, exactly?? Did I somehow, inadvertently, drunkenly, send her the draft of my suicide letter??
Just kidding.
There is no draft.
I just plan on winging it when the time comes. Off the cuff. More real that way. More raw.
Anyways.
That is all for now.

Rough Day at the Office

I was having a pretty good day, up until about 3 pm.
A good day = no rejection letters.
Actually, it had been over 48 hours since my last rejection letter, which I was beginning to consider a lucky streak.
I know- pitiful.
When I first starting querying, the lack of responsiveness just drove me crazy. I thought I would rather get rejection than no response. A simple no. "Hell no" if you want. I don't care. But just answer me.

But then the rejection letters started to trickle in, and then pour.
Now I am actully pretty content with no response. No response means no rejection- although after a period of time goes by, you sort of have to take it as rejetion anyways. But still. It's not outright rejection, and in some ways, that seems kinder.
But when when I checked my inbox a few hours later: two rejection letters. Polite, courteous, to the point. But rejection all the same.
Rough day at the office for me.
But that's okay. One I had pretty much written off as rejection anyways, having not heard back from her for several weeks after my initial query.

Oh well. Life does go on.
And there are many more agents out there, and with my new and improved query (see it under the "Having Grace" tab, I think it kicks ass. I think if it were in prison all the other query letters would be its bitches.)
As another query tracker member said (wrote) to me "You'll going to get rejection, but don't let the rejection get you."

True dat.
Good night.

Query Wars

I have spent a lot of time lately on the internet looking at sites about querying agencies in the States. It is tiring and exhausting and at times, very confusing. For example, one agent advises that the word count should never go in the first sentence of your query, as it is boring information and you should begin with the 'meat' of your query. If interested, the agent can then go on to read about the word count and such. Makes sense.

But then another agent on another web site suggests that the word count should always go in the first sentence, as if it is not an appropriate word count then there is very little point in reading anything at all.
Also makes sense.
So what is a person to do?
Especially in light of the fact that the writer who proofed my query (harshly, I might add) suggested that I do not include the word count at all as it is not important information unless the agent is interested, at which point the details could be discussed.
Anyways. I have been including it in the first sentence.
Sometimes I find this process rather overwhelming.
But then I remind myself not to sweat the small stuff. I mean, honestly- would say, Stephen King, for example, not be a writer today because he had included the word count in the former rather than the latter portion of his query letter? Would he be somewhere else right now, say working in an oil rig somewhere or something, because of a minor detail like that?
Of course not.
Writers write.
And eventually, they do get published.
Anyways. The querying continues at a slightly slower pace for now. I was pretty enthused after my first response was a positive one. I had, at that point, a 100% success rate at querying.
But with one more email my stats dropped to 50%. And now, two more emails later, I am sitting at 25%.
Discouraged?
Kinda but not really.

My husband said to me that night that I got my first positive response (okay, only positive response--at least so far ), Debbie Downer that he is, "try not to get too excited." And I was like "I have to get excited now, this may be my only chance to get excited." Which he didn't really understand but I was like "well imagine (finger quotes) you were a geeky guy in high school who didn't get many chances with girls and every girl you ever tried to hook up with slapped you across the face. Well imagine once, that you didn't get slapped across face. For once in your life, you didn't feel that cold sting of rejection. And maybe you only made it to first base, but still, that would be like the high light of year senior year.
That's how getting a partial request is for me.
It's not a book deal.
It's not an offer of representation.
It's not even a full request.
But still. It's not a straight out slap across the face.
And as one writer wrote one query tracker: "all we really want is for someone to read the dang thing"
And that, perhaps, says it best.
Anyways, here are my stats to date:
Days of querying: 18
Queries sent: 16
Positive responses: 1
Negative responses: 3
Responses pending: 12
Anyways, I am going to go to sleep now. Have a good night.

The verdict is in

And so you are probably saying, what verdict? I didn't realize we were waiting for a verdict.
Because it all happened so long ago-- I sent away my manuscript out into the world, with a very little postage stamp and a very big dream.
Actually, the postage stamp wasn't so very little. It was pretty big, one of those computer generated bar code dealies. Expensive, too. Cost me about thirty dollars.
But anyways, today I checked my emails and saw a message from Hilary McMahon.
My heart rate sped up. Here it is. The moment I've been waiting for. The moment of truth.

I skimmed through the email quickly, but the words that jumped out at me initially were "with abject horror" and I thought YIKES, this is bad- I mean,honestly, of all the things you DON"T want to read in a rejection letter, the term 'abject horror' has to be up there at the top, along with the phrase "the only good use for this book would be as a sedative". But upon further reading I realized she wasn't talking about my writing, she was saying 'with abject horror I realized that your manuscript was still sitting in a pile in a corner of my office." and then I thought "well that's better" but then I read the next sentence... "I didn't quite fall in love with the characters" and from there on it was citing a difficult market, which truly I understand, as the reason for not wanting to pursue this project. She didn't use the word difficult. I don't want to misquote her (the omnipresent libel threat). She used the term "risk averse".
So, I was disappointed to hear that. But. Life goes on. And as I said to her in my response (I thought it was only right and kind to respond) writing is its own reward and as such I will continue on.
She did suggest that I should try to query some of the agents in the States, which is useful advice as they have many more agents there that deal with womens fiction, and many more, larger, publishing companies to sell them to. And honestly, it hadn't occured to me to try the States. I mean, would they really sign me? I'm just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. Took the midnight train going anywhere.
Wait. Those are song lyrics.
Anyways, I will try that. Onward and upward. I have little faith in it, but still, it doesn't hurt. I always like the feeling of sending out a fresh new query letter. The hope is so high then. It's kind of like playing query letter roulette.

Anyways, something went awry when I sen her my reply. I was proofreading it and somehow inadvertenly pressed the 'send' button and then BLAMMO it was sent. I looked frantically for an 'unsend' button, but apparently there isn't one. I was pretty much done the message anyways except that I didn't write "Kind regards," at the bottom with my name underneath it. Probably she can live without that?? I mean, hopefully she knows who the message is from?? But then when I looked at it again I realized with dismay that in the sentence "Thank you for your response", the 'response' had no 'e'. It just said 'respons' Hopefully at quick glance she will not notice?? Maybe it doesn't sound like a very big deal, but it is VERY bad form to spell something wrong when corresponding with a literary agent.
Good thing she's already rejected me.
She's probably thinking the same thing.
Anyways. Maybe that was my subconsciouses (what's the possessive form of 'subconscious' miss Editor in Chief, hmmm, answer me THAT) way of sticking it to her. It's like "Missy, you just messed with the wrong mother fucker. I'm not even gonna spell check this shit before I send it to you."
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Anyways.
Well, I should be going to bed now.
Wait, what am I talking about?
It's nine oh six.
Maybe I am suffering from a major depressive reaction.
Maybe I am just tired.
Have a good night.