#36 Shame on me

I chose to be a writer, I should know better.

Every day has the potential to be a great one, and then you get an email from a potential agent, and your blue skies turn into a scene from Dante's Inferno. Of course, as a writer, you tell yourself it doesn't matter, that the business is subjective, and a refusal to work with you is nothing personal. Still, today, one single email hit me harder than expected, and I'm the one to blame because I was optimistic —a terrible sin for someone in my position.

I'm not posting my "official" query letter here, only my current state of mind. Still, I can tell you that I am currently in the query trenches for my second novel. This anti-rom-com tells the story of a forty-something woman and a mid-twenties man navigating the waters of social expectations and personal needs.

I started the query process for this novel three months ago and received a "maybe" shortly after from a top agency. When I read that email, my daughter was standing before me, and she thought I had lost the last marble I had kept in my system, the one I keep for sanity and basic motor functions. It felt awesome to have a "maybe" because, until then, all I had received from agents had been either silence or pro forma responses, so I jumped and danced across the living room like I had won the lottery. That's what a "maybe" did to me.

Months passed, and I did not receive further communication. I continued working with other reviewers, refining the manuscript to produce a top-notch version that could be sent as soon as the full manuscript was requested. Still, the request didn't arrive, so I did what every agent tells you to do: I sent an email with the current status of my manuscript and a polite question: "Would you be interested in reading the whole document?".

I waited two more weeks and received my response today, a tremendous pass. However, on a positive note, I was thanked for sending extra information.

Shame on me for being an optimist...