On Your Mark...Get Set...

And...Go.

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.

The Story of Story

When in the world will this story ever be done?

Every time I think I am close, I take another look and see room for improvement. After those changes, I still second guess it.

I think this is one of the hardest parts of being a writer (the first is actually sitting down and writing a complete story, poem, or song): you have to eventually decide that your baby is strong enough to stand on its own two feet. Naturally, you will be running behind it as it races out of the living room, your arms outstretched, ready to catch it. What we fail to realize is that we are more afraid than the story is. Little baby Story may fall over, but it will probably start laughing and get right back up.

This apprehension of ours stays even as Story starts to grow up. There is no way it is staying out past 10pm. Borrow the car? Um, no. You're going out with who? No, you can't meet those people. Look at them; no way I am trusting them with my little bundle of joy. They'll rip it to pieces.

This is about the time that Story starts getting annoyed with you. It starts doing whatever it wants to, and while you know that this is normal (even healthy), it terrifies you. It starts messing with your head, playing mind games, threatening to make your life a living hell...all because you won't let it go to that party everyone is going to be at. It is yelling at you, kicking and screaming, and making absolutely no sense. Sometimes it gets so insane that you swear it hates you. You just hold on for dear life and hope it is just going through a phase or something.

Eventually, Story gets to the point you've been waiting for. It calms down, gets some purpose in its life, and sets out to be what both of you want it to be. You are finally working together, moving forward, doing what is best for Story. Soon, Story is ready to leave the nest and introduce itself to the world. Again, you're terrified; is it ready to see the world, to step out of the comfort zone? Heck, are you ready for that?

My Story is getting there. I went through the moments where I almost wanted to pull my hair out because it wasn't making any sense, and mistakes and plot holes were everywhere. How is this kid going to survive, I wondered? Well, Story survived long enough to inspire me to have two more little ones to follow in its footsteps. Story is getting very steady now, and while it still needs some work, I have no doubt that it will be ready to fully strike out into the world very soon.

It's applying to universities now.