With rejection letter number one firmly under my belt, I am practically nose diving into the next agent on my list. Did that first letter sting? Well, yeah, of course it did. I'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't tough to see the "your story doesn't fit our agency" line. Just to clue you in to a little secret, though: that line is also the reason why I'm happily pressing onward.
They didn't write back and call the story "unreadable" or say a nice version of "don't quit your day job." They said it didn't fit with them, which I immediately read to mean that it could fit somewhere. I just have to find out where that somewhere is.
For those of us who want to make a living out of this, one lesson has to be learned early on: more than likely, you will get rejected at some point. It's no different than applying for a job in that sense. You will not get every job you apply for, and you may go on quite a few interviews before you finally get an offer. Our world here is no different.
In any case, I wrote back and thanked them for taking the time to read the first 30 pages, because they really didn't have to...and I've learned that being nice in this field gets you farther than being a brat about a rejection letter.
This letter also marks my first real dive into trying to get published, and I am treating it as such. It has made me go back and examine my work in a totally different light: the viewpoint of a total stranger. The rejection is making me grow, so that my next query letter will be tighter, and my next submission will be richer.
I am in the race now. Game on.
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