Surviving Rejection

I did it.

I finally, finally, FINALLY sent my first query letter. Sent it on Wednesday, received my first form rejection on Thursday.

Deflating, you ask? Why yes, yes it was. But only for a minute. It fueled my fire to get more queries out there, because it taught me that, yes, the query process really is as terrible and demoralizing and ruthless as everybody says it is, so I might as well just get over myself and get my manuscript out there. It might not get published, but it certainly won't get published if I don't send it out. Which leads me to an additional reason to add to my last post's list:

• The possibility of getting published is more appealing than the reality of getting rejected. Sad but true. A manuscript sitting on my hard drive, untainted by real-world opinion, is a manuscript that's full of promise. A query letter getting kicked back with a big red X on it 24 hours after I finally got up the nerve to send it is a reality check. A really, really big one. It's also a challenge.

I'd set a goal to send one query letter a week from here on out, but I don't think that's good enough. I'd rather send two a week, maybe three. Bring on the punishment, people! I can take it. At least now I'm doing something with my manuscript, not letting it languish on my hard drive, emanating fruitless hope and unfulfilled promise.

Yeah, so rejection sucks. So does fear of getting rejected. I choose to be brave.

Clicking "Send"

Such a simple thing to do. One flick of the wrist. One tap of the touchpad. Why can't I do it? Why? Why?? Why??? WHY????

Oh, I don't know. Maybe....

• Fear of rejection. Have you read all those rejection stories? The authors who got 65 rejection letters before landing an agent? The writers who are still waiting on an acceptance letter, like, three years after they started sending queries? The writers who got so sick of the rejection process they uploaded their manuscripts to Smashwords and B&N PubIt! and became self-published NY Times bestsellers? (OK, now I'm dreaming, but I actually do know one author this happened to.) I'm not particularly masochistic, so I'm not looking forward to this whole rejection thing.
• Extreme perfectionism. I want every i dotted, every t crossed and every modifier to dazzle, not dangle. What can I say? After five drafts and countless hours (days/weeks/months/years) staring at the same set of words, it still doesn't feel good enough to submit. Yeah, I realize it's a personal problem.
• Inability to let go. I love my characters. I love them so much it borders on unhealthy. Once I officially move this book into "query phase," I have no excuse anymore to keep revising the book incessantly, at the expense of my other projects.
• Query letter paralysis. OK, if it's unhealthy to stare at the same 100,000 words over and over and over again, it must be really, really unhealthy to stare at the same four paragraphs over and over again. But seriously, could the query letter writing process be any more intimidating? Thanks, Query Shark. (Oh, and seriously, thanks, Query Shark. You're very helpful, really.)

I ... have ... to ... click ... send. Is there a 12-step program for aspiring authors?

The Moral of Support

I acquired something very, very valuable recently: a crit group.

When I started writing my first novel, I talked about it to a few friends. I had a couple of beta readers and one fantastic alpha reader. But what I didn't have were writer friends. And by that I mean writer friends who weren't related to me or married to me or otherwise friends with me. People who would give me the hard facts about my fiction. People whose brutal, honest feedback about my work would really help.

That's not to say my alpha-betas weren't helpful. They were A-Mazing. But if the book was bad, they were going to love it (and me) anyway ... and I'm sure they wouldn't have had an easy time telling me it sucked. So what I needed were people who'd be as impartial and pitiless as the agents who will (hopefully) pick my manuscript up from the sludge pile. Agents who don't know me, don't love me and certainly won't love my book just because it's mine.

Aargh!! What to do? In a city of a million people, you'd think it'd be pretty easy to find a writers' group, but It. Is. Not. I googled writers, writing, writing groups, writing conferences, writing workshops. I pored over social media and discovered jillions of other people like me out there who struggle with this writing business (get it?) on a daily basis. But I had a hard time finding writers who were nearby.

Eventually, I did find a few. It wasn't a google search that did it. It was plain and simple word of mouth ("You're a writer? Oh, my neighbor's a writer, too. You should meet her....") and good ol' coincidence ("Hey! I didn't know you'd be at this party....") Finding them has been all I hoped it would be. They, too, are A-Mazing.

And now, through another chance encounter, I finally have a bona-fide critique group. (Woo-hoo!!) We met at a 12-week writing workshop that took place last fall at a local university. The professor was awesome, very encouraging (and I know that's not always the case, so I consider myself super lucky to have worked with him). And the students, now my critique partners, are talented writers and critics. Our work isn't similar - in fact, our group of seven writers represents seven different genres - but we all have similar goals.

We also have another thing in common: We need each other! They'd been floundering out there alone in this writing thing, just like me. We had our first non-workshop-related meeting this week, and it was A - wait for it - Mazing. We critiqued two manuscripts, and the critiques were honest, brutal, merciless, helpful. Exactly what I need as I get ready to step off the ledge ... ahem ... I mean, query a manuscript.

Photo credit Phillip Hagerman

Goals in Focus

A writer friend of mine posted recently on Facebook that instead of resolutions, she’s come up with a “theme word” for 2012. I thought that was a pretty fantastic idea. Resolutions are meant to be broken, but a one-word theme equates to a goal that can stick with me throughout 2012. My theme was pretty easy to come up with:

FOCUS

I was so, so, so all over the place in 2011. Most weeks, I had something on my calendar every single day and every single night. I wasn’t home to hang out with my son, I wasn’t home to cook family dinners, I wasn’t home to write. Career-wise, things were much the same. I started the year as an interior designer by day, novelist by night. As the year progressed, I became a full-time freelance writer and I struggled to manage my paying projects, let alone find time to work on my (as of yet) non-paying fiction.

This year, I want to focus on what’s important. And for me, that’s two things: my family and my fiction. Of course I still have to work, and I have to do a great job for my paying clients, but if last year taught me anything, it’s that I have to prioritize. Prioritize my time, prioritize my goals, prioritize my life.

I have to FOCUS.

And when it comes to my fiction, I have a new goal to focus on: submitting queries. Yep. The time has come to get off my laurels and begin sending out this book I’ve been slaving and obsessing over for nearly two years. Is it ready? Yes. No. Maybe. It’s as ready as I can make it, and I guess that makes me ready for the next step. And now for another goal: I’m going to chronicle the journey here. The good, the bad and the really, really bad.

Yikes. Wish me luck!

The Road Ahead

Is it weird to say I'm jealous of myself?

Let me qualify, then. I'm jealous of where I seemed to be a year ago. I logged on to This Writing Business to find a photo I'd posted a while back (which isn't the photo I needed -- go figure) and began reading some old posts.

I miss blogging. I miss writing fiction regularly. Don't get me wrong -- I'm still working on my fiction, but I've been far more focused on revising and learning this year than I have on creating new work. I've come a long way in 2011, but I haven't documented the journey very well. And if I'm super honest with myself, it's because I haven't had my priorities quite as straight this year as I seemed to in 2010.

For the past several months, I've been taking part in a fiction workshop at a local university. It's been fantastic, phenomenal, amazing, eye-opening. The facilitator is a longtime writer, professor and author of 11 published (and several unpublished) novels and 50-plus short stories. This workshop has played a crucial role in the progress I've made this year, which comes down more to increased confidence in myself as a writer than it does to word counts or queries. Not that I believe my writing is any better than I might have believed it was last year -- just that I believe that I should be doing this. I am a writer, really. I struggled with that entire concept in 2010.

Now I need to put two and two together. Actually, I need to put 2010 and 2011 together -- I need to take the confidence I've gained about what I want to do with my life and make more time to actually do it, document it and more forward with it. 2010 + 2011 = 2012. And that's my goal for the coming year: Write more, blog more, send queries, work on moving forward.

My professor has this thing he says about how we writers don't need to think of what we're doing as an indulgence -- the indulgences are the things we give up to be able to do it. I'm a writer, and I need to write. It's what I want to do most of all, anyway.

Reading and Writing and Working, Oh My!

This has been SUCH a busy year. The whole year. I can't say I've had a busy week or a busy few days or a busy Thursday. 2011 came in like a tsunami and rolled right over me, and I feel like my head is just starting to resurface.

Not because I'm any less busy ... just because I'm tired of being underwater.

Since I haven't posted at This Writing Business in months, I'll start with a recap of my writing life ... Earlier this year, I left my job in design to write from home full-time. Immediately, a corporate assignment that came my way via referral turned into a 2-day-a-week office job. I barely even knew what hit me. (Ahh, the tsunami metaphor continues.) The assignment was temporary - I replaced a communications manager who was on maternity leave. When she came back, we negotiated a long-term arrangement, and I'm still working for the client in-office and from home. Meanwhile, I picked up a new corporate client and I'm doing ongoing work for newspapers and magazines - including a weekly standing feature I've written for several years.

Whew! So that's what I have been doing. Here's what I haven't been doing:

• Blogging. Obviously.
• Reading Blogs.
• Twitter-ing.
• Cleaning my house. Ahem.

So now, about the fiction ... because that's what it's all about, right? The fiction. When I decided to stay home to write full-time, fiction played into my plans. I'd envisioned all this time during my workweek to put paying assignments aside and write what I want to write. It hasn't happened. I take that back ... it's happened some. I want it to happen more.

For a while, I wasn't focusing much on fiction at all. I was so busy writing non-fiction during the day that I didn't want to sit in front of the computer all night, too. But being away from my manuscripts (yes, manuscriptS - I'm working on a new book) was making me sad, edgy and extremely irritable (just ask my husband), so I have found time to squeeze it in, usually late at night.

Turns out I'm grumpier when I don't get book-writing time than when I don't get sleep. Who knew?

One more update, and then I'll stop rambling about my work habits and (hopefully) get back to the business of rambling about writing. I've been doing a LOT of reading, and that's also taken time away from blog posting, blog reading, Twitter-ing and, yes, writing. But that's been a worthwhile detour. I've learned a lot ... including the fact that the single biggest way to improve as a writer (apart from writing, of course) is to read other writers.

So, anybody who's still with me after this rambly, random post: Hi, thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll resurface in the blogging world ... and keep my head above water.

Photo credit visulogik

No Excuses!

So I said my next post would be about critiques, and that one's coming, but today I have another topic on my mind: accountability. Recently I joined a local writers' group, and it's helped me in more ways than I can name. But one of the main ways is accountability.

I have people who care whether I do or don't write. People who want me to meet my goals and do well and stay motivated. Who want me to finish writing that section or revising that chapter or outlining that new idea. Who make me feel guilty when I don't.

And we all know guilt is a huge motivator.

At the group's latest meeting, we voted to implement a 30-day writing boot camp, a 50-word-a-day challenge for us each to strive for before we meet up again next month. I know, I know, you're thinking, "50 words? That's nothing." Yeah. Right. I've yet to meet that 50-word goal since the challenge began five days ago. And the guilt is positively EATING at me.

Our group has an online forum, a message board, and I've been watching other writers' word counts roll in daily. 771 words. 553 words. 210 words. I've been too ashamed to respond. Too ashamed to make the piddly excuses that have been rolling around in my head.... "But this is my busy week. I'm working 8-5 every day and still churning out freelance stories after-hours."

Blah, blah, blah. Excuses, excuses. I wrote most of my first draft in the post-bedtime hours while working full-time, and I could - and should - be doing the same thing now. I could - and should - have a draft ready for critique.

I could - and should - be writing 50 words a day on my WIP every day for the next 25 days. And I could - and will - use the guilt of this challenge to help me do better. Because I hate feeling guilty. I hate it, and yet I feel it a LOT.

Which just means I need to Stop Making Excuses and Write.