I GOT IT!!!

If you checked out my blog last week you all know that I spent the weekend in beautiful, Sunnyvale , California. Which by the way wasn't so sunny! I found out when I got there it's just a clever name!

I went to an awesome workshop, THE FIRE IN FICTION, by, Donald Maass. This man is truly amazing. Not only did my brain hurt from everything he'd taught us throughout the day, but my gut was sore as well. Boy did he kept us laughing. I only hope that I will retain most of the things I learned that day! So much good stuff!!!

After my wonderful weekend,I headed home. About an hour before I arrived, my husband called to check on my whereabouts. He also tells me that I received a letter in the mail. FROM HARLEQUIN!!! I almost choked on my gum! "Did you open it?" I asked nervously. But of course he hadn't. And he wasn't home either so there was no knowing what the contents of that letter held. Lucky for me, my daughter was home, so I immediately called her giving her strict instructions to carefully open it.

She read the letter and with every word the first sentence held, my heart began to sink into the pit of my stomach. It was a letter indeed, but not the one I'd been waiting for. It was my first REJECTION! I did well as she read what they had to say. No water works. No cuss words. Not really anything at all. Just silence as I listened to her read. I even agreed with much of what the editor said was wrong with my work.

The hardest part came on the drive home when I had to call my hubby back and give him the news. Guess I wasn't going to be the next Nora Roberts like I'd thought. It was just me by myself on that long ride home. The more time I spent with myself the harder I started to cry. Funny thing is a couple of weeks prior to this I felt the rejection coming. Not because I didn't think my work was good enough. No. I could just feel it in my bones. Something wasn't right.

The minute I walked in the door, I went straight to the kitchen counter where "The letter" sat folded on top of it's envelope. It was the strangest thing... though I already knew what it said I had to see it for myself. Read it with my own eyes. Unfortunately, it was still a REJECTION!

The hardest part about being rejected was not the actual rejection. It's that empty confusion. That, "what the hell do I do now?" moment. I felt like a fifteen-year old girl who's boyfriend had just broken up with her. Essentially that's what happened. We broke up. Me and the potential publisher, that is.

Since I had mailed in my requested manuscript two months ago, I'd been this giddy little girl, so excited about the publisher who may like me. And now that I know it's over between us, I'm trying to figure out where do I go from here. Do I throw away the last five-years of my life? Shove Morgan Ranch in a closet and move on to the next set of characters? The next story? Or do I go back to the drawing board and try to reshape this manuscript back into something that publisher's will be fighting to buy? The answer sounds simple, but really it's not.

I've spent the last twenty-four hours trying to put the brakes on the wheel's that are spinning in my head. A hundred different scenarios have come and gone. And still the only answer I have is that I am not giving up. I just don't know what direction I'll be going. For someone as anal as me that's hard. I'm a very scheduled person. I have to know how things are going to turn out. What exactly I am doing at all times. This whole, I don't know what to do now thing doesn't sit very well with me.

This isn't the end of the writing road for me. In fact it's only the beginning. Rejections are part of almost every writers journey. Most writers get many of them before they sell their first book. I hope I never get another, but I'm sure this won't be my last. So tell me... have you been rejected? What did you do? Where did you go from there? Have any advice? Leave me a comment and let me know where you think I should go from here.

Thanks for stopping by Micole Writes Romance.

Hugs

Micole Black