Word Imperfect

Rejection is part of the creative process, any author/artist/creator will tell you that. Does its commonality make it easier? No. Many great people faced rejection before success. 12 publishers rejected JK Rowling. Stephen King's Carrie was rejected 30 times. Beatrix Potter had to self publish. Do these facts make rejection easier? Nope. Today I officially received my first rejection. I will admit, I cried and was sick. Its hard to hear that someone isn't interested in your work. Its not just something you whipped together in a matter of hours and plopped down for the world to see. Its years of hard work, scarified free time and social life, and deep soul searching. Its not an easy to thing to let someone see it. Its the most vulnerable I've ever been in my life. All that being said, I have to say that my first rejection was probably one of the most kind rejections anyone has ever received.  The agent didn't say it wasn't good, or even that it was flawed. She si...

Well, today is the 12th and no email.  That means that I was one of the 29 eliminated from the YA category.  I'm not going to lie, it hurts a lot more than I thought it would, but it isn't the end of the world.  It certainly isn't the end of my writing.  In fact, it's just the beginning. So, where do I go from here?  Truth is I don't really know.  I am hoping to hear from the judges who had my entry.  I want to see if they can give me some insight into why they didn't pick me and what I need to do to improve things.  I know I need to add a few thousand words to the manuscript.  I need to find a freelance editor, though I have someone in minds if she'll have me as a client.  After I have this thing perfectly polished and tweaked I'll try querying some agents one on one.  If that doesn't work I guess I'll self publish. Thank you all for your support and positive thoughts, please know that this is not over, not by a long shot. A ...