Five Rejections Down and a Moment to Breathe

Five rejections. Fifteen still waiting.

The first wave of responses on my manuscript was pretty swift. One after another, for the most part, and most of them were either close calls or generally thoughtful. That points to positive things, and positive thinking is the only way to get through the waiting game.

But somehow, unforunately, I've found another way to worry and let my mind run away with me. There's been a silence of about a month, and after so many non-form rejections flew in at once, it's hard to stop myself from worrying. If you've submitted work for any length of time, you get used to seeing patterns of failure, and identifying them becomes a defense mechanism against the rejection you're always expecting to collide with around the next corner.

Deep down I know the truth -- selling a book can take anywhere from a few weeks to multiple years. That's a lot of self-doubting blog posts before getting to the next stop. I also know that my thoughts are turning to my manuscript more often these past few weeks because I'm adjusting to some new elements of my job. When the school year began, I didn't have a spare second to think about anything outside of the classroom. These past few weeks I've had a second here and there.

In the meantime, my latest project is moving again. And as long as I keep writing, I have something to look forward to submitting.

Querytracker Interview

The way to not fall off the writing bandwagon is to post something interesting! Or if you can't do that, post something sort of interesting. Like a short interview on how you got your literary agent.

http://querytracker.net/success/mike_grosso.php

Granted, it would have been excellent for the interview to include details on the sale of the book, but this is good enough for now. Here's to regularly scheduled postings in the coming weeks!