Thursday 19 August 2010

A rejection that gets better by the minute

A rejection that gets better by the minute
Rejection is rejection and it’s not nice, no matter how used you are to it. Yet I can’t quite get myself to delete this one from my in-box. If it had been a hardcopy I would have kept it.
It is from an agent. They said they wouldn’t want to represent me with this story because they didn’t’ think it was strong enough for the current competitive market but that if I failed to get representation this time, then send them the next. They liked my writing. They had seen the whole novel.
I keep coming across the email. The more I see it, the more I like it.
I now have two tasks:
- rewrite this novel and make it stronger.
- write the next, equally strong, and send it to them if I still haven’t got an agent.
That’s how you have to go on, making the steady improvements

1 comment:

Trevor said...

I am having a similar experience with my children's books, Gill. I worked on the first one with a London agent in December. In January she said she no longer had the time to work with me but she asked me to send her anything else I write before I send it elsewhere. I've done that 3 times so far. She says they are well written but not what she is looking for currently. She asked me to continue sending my work in so maybe there's a chance still. As you say, when you get this sort of rejection it's worth taking onboard.