Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Rejection

Last year at the Phoenix comicon my wonderful husband, Ryan, came with me to some of the writing panels because he knew I wanted to be an author. I had no manuscript and no ideas, just a burning desire to be a writer.

One of my favorite authors, Aprilynne Pike, discussed the query process and shared how she had something like 50 rejections before finding an agent for WINGS. When I was getting close to finishing the first draft of my book, Ry and I sat down and I tried to remember what it was I was supposed to do next.

He recalled the river of rejections that even good authors receive, and in an effort to keep me from losing hope in the face of the inevitable onslaught he decided to make a game out of my rejections. We set up prizes for reaching different numbers of rejection.

Because the first one is a big deal and officially takes me out of the realm of "I wanna be a writer some day" and puts me squarely in the "I'm a real author with a finished book who just got rejected" realm, we celebrated with a steak dinner. Most people might think celebrating a rejection seems insane, but we're just a little bit insane.





2 comments:

  1. I firmly believe that a rejection letter is a huge accomplishment. I need to make this same goal!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a great goal to have, and it definitely makes you feel like a "real" writer. I guess to make me feel realer (I can make up words because I'm a writer) now I have to work on getting a request for my manuscript.

      Delete