Christmas musings....Above is a picture of myself and my friend, Erin + her adorable daughter Ruby, from our December writers group, which was awesome as usual. December has brought lots of new things for me. First of all, Flash is coming along. Currently the word count is at almost 14,000 which is great. Like I've said before, I plan for it to wrap at about 65-70K. Progress is awesome and I am absolutely loving writing something new especially considering it will have no market or length issues! Hooray for awesomeness! I am hoping to have the MS complete with at least a rough edit done by April when I hope to attend a conference in Texas and Utah. My brother has been trying to help me meet up with New York Time best-selling author, Brandon Sanderson so I can talk to him about my work but that hasn't panned out yet. Apparently my brothers girlfriend works for Winn Sanderson, who is Brandon's dad, and he was willing to meet me and personally introduce me to his son and that would have been fabulous but Mr. Sanderson(the elder) lives in Idaho which is quite a drive. I don't know that we'll ever work that out but it would be super cool if we could. I really appreciate their efforts on my behalf.
I've been having some discouragement issues but that does go with the territory. In my writing group I have a friend who got Stephenie Meyer's agent, Jodi Reamer to represent her a few months back and she(the friend, not the agent!) recently told us that she has a three book deal with a well-known publisher. That's great news for her! I am thrilled for her and also kind of jealous...can't help it. She deserves her success though, for sure, and has been at this longer than I have. Also another friend from writers group that has been querying was telling me she'd received three rejections or something but they were on partials and fulls. I haven't even had one request! UGH. I'm up to 10 rejections out of 19 sent and I know, I will and should, have a ton more rejections(because I nee to query WAY more). I just wish I'd at least get requests for partials.
I find it harder to get rejections from agents that didn't have sample pages or chapters than those that did. I mean, a query letter really doesn't show much about my writing style even though I've taken lots of time trying to perfect it I still have no idea if it really conveys my story. If they read sample pages or chapters and just don't think it's for them it's a lot easier for me to take cuz I get that. I got a chance and didn't wow em. That I can deal with cuz no, not everyone is going to love me and I'm aware of that. Oh well, who really knows. Most of the rejections I get I don't mind so much, but I have a list of "dream agents" and when I get one from one of them it inevitably makes me a little sad. This is a process and I'm sure it will be full of ups and downs and more than a little self doubt. Writing is subjective and it's impossible to be objective about your own work. I just sincerely hope I'm not that author ten years from now still beating a dead horse when I really have no talent.
I do believe I have talent though. I really, sincerely, believe that I can write and that I'm good at it. It's all about timing and finding the right person at the right time who can see that too! Keeping a positive attitude and forging ahead with Flash, which will be marketable and I'll know isn't being rejected because of word count is a positive step for sure!
