Bummer

I have been to writing conferences where big name authors hold up stacks of hundreds of rejection letters. Many a bestseller wear their rejection merit badge with pride. They came through the trenches. They've been there, man.

Writers love those stories to a freakish degree. Because (a) it makes us think we are on the right track - in spite of the tide of "No"s coming at us. "If she got rejected seven gazillion times, then I might be just as freakishly successful someday! After all, I've only been rejected four gazillion times! There's hope for me! Three gazillion to go!"

And (b) it brings the demi-gods of publishing down to our level. "She got rejected! She's just like me!"

I honestly don't know how many times my stories have been rejected. (More than ten, less than a hundred.) I don't think about my rejections after the fact. I jot them down in my little spreadsheet where I keep track of dangling submissions, and then I forget about them.

I have yet to have a rejection crush my soul (and hopefully never will), but each one is disappointing in its own way. Why am I talking about this? Well, I've had a pretty disappointing week on the rejection front.

Following the Golden Heart brou-ha-ha, I sent out a trickling stream of agent queries. I'm not a "blanket the market, submit to everyone" kinda girl, so I carefully selected agents I thought suited my needs who'd also expressed an interest in the genres I write. I researched, I queried, I submitted requested partial manuscripts for consideration... then I waited.

In the last week, I've received rejections from four of them. Which, honestly, has bummed me out a little. However, I'm still going great guns on my new WIP. I'm jazzed about my shifter release (less than two weeks!) and I have about a dozen other very pleasant things to distract me. So the sting of rejection? Pretty mild. In the karmic balance of things, I think I'm still on the plus side. And I've got a lot of rejections to go before I get to seven gazillion.