Sunday 7 March 2010

Rejection rears its ugly head


Saturday morning is usually the day when rejections fall on the mat beneath the letterbox. Agents and publishers alike must clear out submissions Friday morning, send the pile tottering off to the post office Friday afternoon so they have a clean desk for Monday morning. It makes sense. I could come to dread Saturday mornings.
This one acknowledged my work as competent, which is good, if not something to set me dancing around the room. Better than telling me to give up and find another hobby, though! Evidently I did not set the agents's pulses singing, competent though I might be. Still, that comes down to personal taste, I think. Another agent may find that it does something for them, so I am not too disheartened. And I didn't wait ages to hear; I sent the sub off before I went on holiday, so it has only been 3 weeks.
I still await a reply from a publisher who cited 6-8 weeks for a response and they're still within their time-frame. Last September an e-publisher got in touch with me, asked for a clean copy of the whole ms and now does not answer my follow-up e-mails. I think I have to regard that one as fallen over the edge of a cliff and gone for good.
My skin has thickened since I began this writing thing. Once a rejection would have dejected me for at least a fortnight, but today woke up the very next day thinking where are the first 3 chapters of that ms...let me see what I can do with it before it goes out again.

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