Rejection? Motivation.

Query rejection emails can arrive in my inbox on any day, but lately they’ve been appearing more frequently on Mondays. That’s not to say I don’t get rejections on other days—when you’re deep in the query trenches, rejections come all the time, sometimes even on weekends—but Mondays are particularly evil. Or so I thought.

This Monday I didn’t get a rejection. I refreshed my email several times, thinking there had been some kind of mistake or technical error, but no email appeared. I was buoyed by hope. What if, this one Monday, an agent was considering my query, stowing it in a maybe pile instead of outright rejecting it? I clung to that hope. (Because without hope, I’d have given up on this whole querying thing long ago.)

Tuesday morning, when I would usually be prepping a new query to a new agent, I was still stuck on thinking this week was different. Why send out a new query when something good, really good (like cupcakes when you’re having an otherwise bad day), might be in the works? So instead of checking my agent list and starting on the next query, I did other things, thinking a request for more pages could show up in my inbox at any time.

Of course, my logic was flawed.

A rejection arrived Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t a Monday, but it was close enough. (And I should have known better.) It contained the typical response, things like Thank you for querying me, but and This isn’t a good match for me and This business is subjective. I’ve seen all these before, but every time it still hurts, just a little bit. I guess you can’t be desensitized to query rejections no matter how many you get. (Or at least I can’t.)

So, suddenly, I was on the internet, checking the submission requirements for the next agent on my list. Turns out, rejections may be negative, but my drive to keep querying feeds off those rejections. Some days, I need someone to dismiss my manuscript to motivate me to keep going, to keep searching for that one right agent for me and my manuscript. That agent is out there. I have to believe that. It just takes persistence to find him or her.

If nothing else, I’m persistent.

I’ve been at this awhile now and even if things don’t work out with this manuscript, I’m prepping another one. A Twitter writer friend told me that’s what separates those who get published and those who don’t. So many writers who get published had been at this a long time, with multiple manuscripts, polishing their writing and their pitches. Then, one day, they queried the right person at the right time, signed with that agent, and found a publisher. If that’s true, then I’m on the right track. And maybe this next agent on my query list will be the one.