October 1, 2009

Coping with Rejection as a Writer

The rejections are coming in. Some are more helpful than others. Each rejection tells me one of two things: either the story isn't a good fit for the agent, or my writing needs some improvement.

And I'm okay with that. No agent has told me, "Please never send me any more of your material. You'll never get good enough." I will get better. It may be that Shadow Bound is the book that will get me published. It may be the next book. Or maybe not. As long as each book is better than the last, I'm happy. For now. ;)

Whether I get an agent for Shadow Bound or not, I'm starting the early planning stages of my next project: Phantom. I'm so excited about this book. I've already worked through lesson 6 of How to Think Sideways, using whatever I can apply to this new project. I'm really pumped about this one. I'm really going to focus on voice and character with this one. There's always room for improvement with voice and character.

Anyway, I know some of you are dealing with rejection, so over the next couple of days I thought I'd share some posts that I've found helpful.

2 comments:

Tori said...

Every writer gets rejected. I hope that makes it easier for you. I hope I handle rejections the same way you are: There is something to learn from this. I will get better.

For phantom work on making it as original as possible since the story has been done countless times. Work on pacing defintely. And remember: this project will be better than your last!


Dont give up. I believe in you!

C Bailey said...

I'm getting ready to submit and it helps to find articles like this one.

thanks for addressing this.

www.peevishpenman.com

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