HAPPY AMURRICA DAY (titles the post which has nothing to do with what day it is)
If you follow me on tumblr you might have noticed that on Monday I...very badly needed a distraction. I'll get the ensuing ficlets up on AO3 asap, but for now I want to talk about what happened.
Do you remember a while back that I won a one-sentence query contest that meant the first fifty pages of my book would be read by a fairly prestigious book agency? Well, they got back to me on Monday. They didn't like it.
This isn't the first agency to reject the book--I've gone through roughly 20 other agencies, which is and isn't a lot in terms of rejection letters. The book is hard to place because it's genre wiggly, suspense (not a thriller, which has a time limit) but also some romantic/comedic elements--blahblahblah, what I'm trying to say is there aren't a lot of agents for suspense. With writing club's help we've managed to dig up...thirty. The average book gets queried something like 200 times before it gets picked up.
The long meandering point of this is: despite my best efforts of trying to keep an even keel, I hung a lot of my hopes on this chance.
Here's what the email said:
While we were intrigued by your premise, we ultimately felt that the writing needed polishing and the characters and setting developed at a rate that didn’t keep pace with the plot. I'm sorry to not have a better answer for you, but as you know, the marketplace is very crowded and we want to be really passionate about any new projects we take on.
So...yeah. My idea is good. My writing is...not. My character development is also...not.
I honestly don't know how to fix these things.
I've only told one person in writing club because I'm still kind of...processing. Not wallowing! Trying not to wallow. Just, you know, want to get myself to a place where I don't burst into tears when I talk about it. (Getting better! Only choked up a little writing this, no actual teardrops it's a work in progress.)
This whole week has not been great. The same day I got the email my back started spasming (because I sat weird on the sofa being sad and watching Eureka) and it has only just started not making me want to rip out my own spine. Both of my chiropractors are out of town, hahahaha you'd think it was 4th of July week or something.
But yes! So! Happy things! You all continue to be awesome and provide me with much needed distraction; I'm mostly healthy (excluding my back, which is on the mend); my family is awesome, my life is pretty damn awesome, and I'm not giving up. Hoooo. ilu.
Do you remember a while back that I won a one-sentence query contest that meant the first fifty pages of my book would be read by a fairly prestigious book agency? Well, they got back to me on Monday. They didn't like it.
This isn't the first agency to reject the book--I've gone through roughly 20 other agencies, which is and isn't a lot in terms of rejection letters. The book is hard to place because it's genre wiggly, suspense (not a thriller, which has a time limit) but also some romantic/comedic elements--blahblahblah, what I'm trying to say is there aren't a lot of agents for suspense. With writing club's help we've managed to dig up...thirty. The average book gets queried something like 200 times before it gets picked up.
The long meandering point of this is: despite my best efforts of trying to keep an even keel, I hung a lot of my hopes on this chance.
Here's what the email said:
While we were intrigued by your premise, we ultimately felt that the writing needed polishing and the characters and setting developed at a rate that didn’t keep pace with the plot. I'm sorry to not have a better answer for you, but as you know, the marketplace is very crowded and we want to be really passionate about any new projects we take on.
So...yeah. My idea is good. My writing is...not. My character development is also...not.
I honestly don't know how to fix these things.
I've only told one person in writing club because I'm still kind of...processing. Not wallowing! Trying not to wallow. Just, you know, want to get myself to a place where I don't burst into tears when I talk about it. (Getting better! Only choked up a little writing this, no actual teardrops it's a work in progress.)
This whole week has not been great. The same day I got the email my back started spasming (because I sat weird on the sofa being sad and watching Eureka) and it has only just started not making me want to rip out my own spine. Both of my chiropractors are out of town, hahahaha you'd think it was 4th of July week or something.
But yes! So! Happy things! You all continue to be awesome and provide me with much needed distraction; I'm mostly healthy (excluding my back, which is on the mend); my family is awesome, my life is pretty damn awesome, and I'm not giving up. Hoooo. ilu.