RE: What Query Letters Do To Your Face

It's Halloween! So I decided to do a blog post on the thing that currently scares me most-- hold onto your panties, it's a doozy!!!-- my career. I know what your thinking: "Is this chick bonkers? The thing that scares her most is her CA- REER?" *waits while you roll your eyes*. But alas, it's true! It's not exactly my "career" that scares me-- it's the not knowing if I will be able to MAKE this dream my career. My actual current career is college student/bank teller, and I am green-in-the-face sick of both. ME WANTS TO BE A REEL RITER. And who holds my fate in their hands (or inbox, rather)??? The 50 literary agents that I've queried.

A few weeks ago, I sent my first query letters. My original plan was to send it out to my top 5 agents and wait the agonizing 6-8 weeks for a response. But then I started to have my normal little thoughts of self doubt. Me: "WHY would any of these agents want to represent ME? They represent people like Maggie Stiefvater and Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins. WHAT was I thinking???" And that combined with me being the type of person who has-no-patience-and-wants-everything-right-now decided to send out more letters. I started with 20. Then 30. Now my count is at 50. That sounds pathetic, right? *is ashamed of my impatience*. So far, I've gotten 9 rejection letters and I'm waiting to hear back from 6 other agents who graciously answer every query letter. The rest only contact you if they want to see more material. WHAT KIND OF TORTURE IS THIS????? It's pretty close to the ancient Chinese torture method of tying somebody to the ground and letting bamboo grow through his or her body. (A nice visual for your Halloween pleasure).

After I got my first rejection letter, I shrugged it off. It was no big deal, right? There were plenty more chances for me to get requests, right? But then came the day of darkness. I woke up feeling icky, but had 2 tests at school and no sick days left at work, so I drug myself out of bed and forced myself to go. By the time I got to school, I'd gotten 3 rejection letters in my email. *started to feel kind of sad* I was pretty sure that I'd flunked both of my tests, and while waiting for another class to start, I got another rejection email. That's when the tears came. My throat was throbbing, both my ears were hurting, I was pretty sure that I had a fever, and on top of all that, I had FOUR rejections in one day. ALL THIS HAPPENED BEFORE 10 AM. I was crushed. But I went to work anyway, and when I broke down in tears in front of my boss, I was sent home to rest (to my intense relief (and mortification)). When I got home, I received ANOTHER rejection, and that was just IT. I took a big ole dose of cold medicine for my 101 degree fever and buried myself in my blankets, where I slept for five hours. When I woke to my husband bearing chicken soup and ginger ale, I checked my email once more to find another reply from an agent. I was CERTAIN that it was another rejection, but then I remembered: "HEY! This agent said that she only replies if she's interested in reading more!!!" I opened the email and sure enough, SHE WANTED TO READ MY BOOK. mmmmmmyyyyyyyyy bbbbbboooooookkkkkk!!!!!!!!!

(After popular demand) This was my face then:

Or maybe it was something more like this, since I still had a 101 fever:

So there you have it. After all that depression and anxiety and impatience, I received a manuscript request. I am still waiting to hear back from her, and of course my impatience has taken over again.

My face while I've been waiting:

And waiting:

And waiting:

And still waiting. But I know that there is some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, even if it ends in rejection too. If it does, I know that I need to re-evaluate my story and alter it as such. And my best friend keeps reminding me that Harry Potter and Twilight and such were all rejected multiple times, and that helps me keep my head up a little. :-) 

But to all of you out there who are waiting like me: I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!! I will keep you updated on my face as the rejections (and hopefully more requests!!!) keep flowing into my inbox. AND I am participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time, so I hope to have book two in the series complete by the end of the year! Who's doing it with me?? Have any of you experienced multiple rejection lately? I'd love to hear your comments so we can complain together! :-)