I've been rejected a lot in my 34 years of life, both in literary endeavors and personal ones. But since it's a lot less embarrassing, today's blog will focus on my literary rejections.
Just last year, I finally completed polishing and editing The Humble Abode, a fun and quirky fantasy novel I had been writing off and on for ten years. I spent a good deal of time painstakingly crafting my query materials with the assistance of my lovely and talented beta reader and, with my heart in my mouth, I launched my opus out into the world.
Then I watched it get shot to ribbons in a 21-rejection salute. BOOM! Too light-hearted. BAM! Doesn't fit my list right now. POW! Form rejection letter. FIZZLE! An ominous lack of reply than can only be construed as a rejection.
I tried sending it EVERYWHERE. I sent it to several small publishers and just about every likely literary agent who represented fantasy and did not operate on a street corner with a sign reading "will agent for food." Nothing. No one wanted it. I got some kind words in response from agents who took the time to tell me that they liked my writing and my characters, even if they didn't feel like it was a good fit for them, but all in all, I walked away empty-handed.
I could have done a lot of things in response to this utter failure of my greatest dream in life since I was eight years old. I could've been childish. I could've replied to rejection letters with this gif:
But I didn't. Because, maturity. Because, professionalism. But mostly because I know "not now" actually may mean, "not right now."
As well we all know, the published market is ever-changing. It trends in one direction, then corrects and goes in another as people start to get burned out on carbon copies of the same old thing. For a while now, we've all seen the thousands of YA novels about brooding but sexy vampires, Hunger Games-esque dystopian works, and the many dubious Fifty Shades of Grey fan fiction stories being published as works in their own right. And now we begin to see the backlash against some of these trends. I see a lot of agents saying things like, "Don't send me anymore paranormal romance. The market is crammed, so unless it's awesome, I can't sell it." I'm also reading that folks are getting tired of first-person YA meant to emulate the Hunger Games. And I don't know if people are getting tired of the Fifty Shades of Grey fan fiction being treated as legitimate creative works, but I am, so you know, fingers crossed.
Ultimately, it's a numbers game and a waiting game. You have to hold onto hope and keep trying, or you won't even have the possibility of something good happening, right?
Maybe someday, quirky madcap fantasy will be in vogue, and when that day comes, I'll be ready and waiting with The Humble Abode in my hands. And in the meantime, I'm gonna keep on keeping on. Right now, I’m polishing up my query materials for yet another novel, a post-apocalyptic fairy tale called Ash. I've also got another novel in progress and I’m continuing to write short stories. I've even submitted two to paying markets to try and get my name out there. (I've gotten one rejection out of that so far, but bygones. The venue with the longer response time is the one I sent my absolute best story to, so I have high hopes!) I'm going to keep tapping the keys, rattling my solitary writer's cage to try to get people to notice what I'm doing, and dreaming of the day it all works out. Because it can happen, but only if I'm trying. What matters is that I don't give up.
And my day of triumph comes someday, as I just know it will, I imagine it will look something like this:
A clip from the episode "The Excelsior Acquisition" of "The Big Bang Theory"
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