Reject

Rejections are awful.

Oh, if you see me and we chat about it, I’ll play it off like it’s nothing. I have other queries out there, I’ll say, so it’s okay. More than okay. It’s great. One of those other agents will be the right agent. They’ll pick it up, I’ll say, and want to represent me.

But really, the more rejections I get, the more dejected I feel.

These agents could be rejecting me because I’m no one with few social media ties. I get that, but I’M WORKING ON IT. I’m getting out there, I swear. You should have seen how social media and I got along this summer (which was not at all) and compare that to how we’re doing now. Just imagine how we could be doing if I could shout, I’VE GOT AN AGENT!!!

Not that I think social media is why I’m getting rejections. Agents on Twitter (because, you know, it all comes back to Twitter) say that they don’t base a rejection on the writer’s social media presence. There are other possibilities. One could be that they really just don’t think my story would sell. Why represent a book if there’s no chance of making money on it? I totally get that. I wouldn’t want to waste my time, either.

Another possibility could be that my writing is horrible. If that’s it and if you’re an agent reading this who has/is/will be rejected/rejecting me, PLEASE tell me. That would be a relief, actually. I’d know to stop torturing myself with these queries. I’d know to keep on writing (because I can’t stop), but not to keep bugging these poor literary agents. I mean, think of things from their side. Either they hate awful writing or they can’t help but laugh. Oh, God. Please don’t let them be laughing at my writing.

Option C? My query lacks luster (or flair, as the Writer’s Digest one-on-one agent put it) and therefore doesn’t stand out enough to be that one in one hundred that the agent notices and requests. (If it’s less than 1/100…please don’t tell me. I couldn’t take the knowing.) I’ve been working on that. I’ve made a few changes to the query over the past seven weeks or so. I’m worried too many changes will screw with my query karma, but then again, I haven’t had much good query karma. My latest version is better, I hope.

As with all good (or cruel) multiple choice questions, it could be that the answer to all my rejection problems is none of the above. That’s disheartening. Can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong, can I? Don’t know if it’s one of my other answers or this last one. So those rejections will just keep coming and I’ll just keep querying. There’ll be a breaking point, like whenever I can’t find any agencies I haven’t already queried.

Then, I’ll move on.

WORLD’S EDGE is just waiting for a shot at this game.