Day 39

When I was young, I suffered from such severe rejection anxiety that I faked excuses to get out of anything competitive. I would rather deny myself an experience than face rejection; it tied directly to my sense of self value and worth. My husband feared when I began the process of getting published, that I would not deal well with the onslaught of rejections that were sure to come. If nothing else, I have developed an amazingly thick skin over the past few months. The first, say 20 rejections were like knives slicing me open--revealing all my innermosts to the whole world--- "Look at me... I'm a loser!" That was a good 30 rejections ago.... and now I just grunt, sigh (heavily,) and toss them into my "some day you are going to regret this" rejection pile. Remarkably, I have learned not to bleed when an agent or publisher rejects my manuscript....or rather, my one-page query, which perfectly incapsulates the very best my book has to offer (cough cough... swallow my tongue.) I am pleased to announce to the world that being rejected by OVER 60 agencies/publishers has not destroyed my self-esteem... but rather has made me more determined than ever not to quit. I'm not sure how that is possible... perhaps it just proves what all my friends and family have known for years, but I have refused to admit..... I am very stubborn. Hmmm. Well, if it gets me published, then yeah for me.

I stopped counting after 60 rejections.

Let's be fair though... not all my responses were rejections. I had at least two of these: "Yes, we will publish your book... it has such high social value, and we are pleased to inform you that you have been selected by our publishing group to have your manuscript published... We are very particular about the limited number of books we publish each year, but we feel your book has what it takes to find success in the market place." Oh,,, did we mention??? That's all for the low, low price of $1,000---give or take a couple hundred.

Then there are those two agents who actually requested my full manuscript. Wow, that was cool. Too bad one of them decided my book just didn't seem to "have what it takes to compete in a post-Twilight market". ... which is very interesting because my book is pretty much NOTHING like Twilight....except that there are boys and girls in it. No vampires. No werewolves. No perfectly glorious, marble chested leading man who yearns for the heroine's blood. Well then, perhaps that's what my book is missing???? A hot, blood-thirsty hero? Sigh sigh. The other agent still has not responded. That is the toughest part of all.... waiting (and I do it so gracefully.) Finally, there is my ace in the hole. The one traditional publisher who has agreed to publish me---strictly small time with limited release, but hey, what the heck. It's a beginning.

Then, to top it off, there's that annoying prodding that keeps whispering to me that I should start the query process all over again... because my book should be queried as science fiction. I know. What am I waiting for, huh? .

One thing is for sure... I have been bitten by the writing bug. I am excited about the direction my next book is taking... it's a surprise even to me. And then, lying in wait are many more books... inspirational stories, a comedy about becoming a leading man, and my personal favorite,,, the pending "Pickle Jar Science" which was supposed to be a joke, but now ???

I close tonight with a quote from one of my all time favorite authors. "Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." Og Mandino