Scary cloud, like the ones that were making me all worried and stuff.
So what I’m hoping is, I’ll get so involved in revising THROWN during the flight, I won’t be bothered so much. This has happened before, so I have reason to believe it could happen again.
I’ve had a bit of a discouraging email since my last post. An agent I was hoping would like my writing (let’s face it, I hope every agent likes my writing, but I had met this one and thought she was more likely to like my writing than your average bear), alas and alack, did not. I did not float her boat, nor did I knock her socks off. She was not wowed or gobsmacked. She was nonplussed and maybe even bored and/or annoyed.
Oh well. Now I know. And seriously, I’ve hardly been out there in the trenches getting buffeted by dozens and dozens of brutal rejections. I have little right to complain.
It makes me both less and more determined to get published. Right after I read it, I thought, “Yes, I am a terrible writer!” The agent never said anything like that, but that’s how I interpreted it. Then, after telling Tom and his friend Cindy what the agent wrote, and emailing with Joanne Kennedy (who I’ve dubbed my “publishing shrink” and whose latest book, Tall, Dark and Cowboy is my reading material for those times in flight when I can’t use electronic devices), I decided that it’s just one person’s opinion and someone else out there will love it and want to represent me. I just have to work really hard at rewriting it and make it sparkle even more brightly.
I know this all builds character, but really. Do I need THAT much more character? I went to a Catholic girls’ school, for heaven’s sake! Apparently so.
If I let this come full circle, my fear of turbulence may echo my fear of writing. Not a fear of writing exactly, but fear of making revisions that don’t sparkle enough. What if I spend hours and hours and hours rewriting to deepen my characters, and I send THROWN off to that agent who asked me to revise it, and she doesn’t think it’s all that great? What if I get a big “Meh”??!
As I often do with myself when I worry, I go to the next logical step. Okay, what if I DO get a big meh? What if the agent doesn’t like it? I’ll have an arguably better book and I can cross another agent off my list. I’ll send it to other agents until I find someone who loves it. And if I run out of agents, then I’ll figure something else out. Self-publishing, maybe. Or not. But whatever the case, a meh isn’t the end of the world.
Update: On my flight back to Denver, there were a few mild bumps, but nothing that made my stomach drop or made me clutch the armrests in abject terror. That’ll learn me to worry about some stupid low-pressure system! In other words, the turbulence turned out to be a big meh.
I could “read” you all day. Take that!
Hang in there and move on to the next prospect. Your perfect agent is out there somewhere–now you just know one more person who isn’t perfect for you. The perfect person will introduce you to thousands of perfect readers!