Freshman at Junior/Senior Prom

It’s amazing what can happen when you love a book.

Back in January, I bought Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon’s DOON and wrote a blog post about how much I loved it. A few weeks later, Lorie asked me to join the street team promoting the next book in the series. Of course I said yes. Not long after that, Carey invited me to see Brigadoon and chat with her after. Again, of course I said yes.

While Carey and I talked, she mentioned Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together, a conference in West Chester, OH the first full weekend of June. When I originally moved to Cincinnati, I lived in West Chester. I was familiar with the area, but I’d never heard of the conference. Carey said that although the event was sold out, there was a signing event on Saturday that was open to the public. I told her I’d be there.

But I’d forgotten that I’d bought tickets to the Reds game for my parents that day. Not only were my parents coming from out of state, but the game was at the exact same time as the signing. I sent a message to Carey, saying I wouldn’t be able to make it…

…and she invited me to join her and other published authors to see The Fault in Our Stars on Friday, the day before the signing. Yes, me, a girl who’s querying (and querying and querying) but has never been published, asked to go to a movie with PUBLISHED AUTHORS. It felt like I was a high school freshman girl being asked to go to junior/senior prom—I’d be so far out of my league, with people way more popular, way cooler than me, and they’d all know each other but I’d only know one of them. Of course I said yes, but still.

It turned out there were five of us at the movie. Including me and Carey, there were two other women—book bloggers—from the DOON street team and Melissa Landers, author of ALIENATED, an awesome YA sci-fi book that—like DOON—I found signed at a local bookstore. At first, I kept quiet while they talked about Lori Foster’s and all the other published authors they knew there. At first, it was like any other time I’d met new people…except for the whole published books thing. I listened, absorbing all I could, until the movie started.

Sometime during the movie, as I sat with two published authors, I received two query rejection emails. When the movie was over, as everyone gathered their tissues and wiped at their smeared makeup, I mentioned my two rejections. Carey and Melissa were sympathetic, understanding, and encouraging. They’d been there. They knew what it was like. Melissa even mentioned how she always did something she called revenge querying—for every rejection she received, she sent out two more queries. She and Carey said it’s a numbers game. Basically, keep going, no matter what, and someday you’ll get an agent.

I’d like to believe that, but there’s no guarantee that the longer I query the closer I get to an agent. I told Melissa and Carey that they were like Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars, I was more like Hazel Grace. Hazel Grace is a realist, knowing that her cancer will eventually kill her, while Augustus is the optimist, the energy, all about life and possibilities. That’s not to say I’m giving up. I’m not. But I know that sometimes the impossible can masquerade as the improbable.

No matter. I didn’t let the rejections get to me. We left the theatre and stood outside in the sun, the five of us chatting about the movie and other YA books. I felt more on even ground then, no longer a freshman among upperclassman, because I read A LOT. Even better, we were talking about these books from the POV of writers, a perspective I’ve never been able to share with my reader friends. It made me realize that I’m not alone out here. There are other authors—Carey and Melissa included—who have been where I am and have made it through to the other side. Freshmen grow up and become juniors and seniors. In the meantime, I can keep querying, keep reading—because look where one amazing book has gotten me—and keep making connections with other readers and writers, published or otherwise.