Rejection Is Part of the Territory

Week One of National Novel Writing Month is complete and according to my word count, I'm just a little behind. Well, not a little. More like 2000 words. That's okay. For some reason, this year, I'm not as concerned to complete the story. Yes, I would be glad to finish the 50,000 words just for the accomplishment alone, but this year, I am simply writing to keep writing.

Yesterday I decided that my story that I wrote for last year's NaNoWriMo was ready to be published. Of course, I want it published by a real publisher, so I need an agent before I can really get to a publisher (it's apparently easier for someone the publisher knows to bring a manuscript instead of just little ol' me).

My first choice was Nathan Bransford, an agent working for Curtis Brown, Ltd. He's based in San Francisco, but travels to New York quite often. I wrote a Query Letter (which is standard for agents) and sent him several pages from my story. Unfortunately, he felt he was not the proper agent to represent the story.

I used to think that being rejected by a publisher/agent would be the end of the world. I consider myself a great writer as you have witnessed on this blog (yes, that was a little joke). But all joking aside, I still feel that I am a good writer. Because of that, I used to simply expect someone to want to publish/represent my work. I must have grown up (scary thought) because when I got the email from Nathan that he would not represent me, I didn't even blink an eye. It's not that I expected to be rejected. I just gave up the worry about it and decided to not let his decision ruin my chances for eventual publishing of my story.

In fact, I'm just glad that I sent the Query out. It's the first step in a very long journey to publishing my story and Nathan's rejection letter is the just the foundation that will help me get to where I want.

I'm going to do some more research on Literary Agents with the hope of submitting my story once again to a different agent and see what happens. But I'm not going to worry about it anymore. If someone wants to publish my story - fantastic. If not, I'll just find a way to let everyone read it anyway.