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Getting told, "No"



Rejection hurts. You can prepare yourself so much for getting told no, but it will still sting. 

                As you know, I wrote a novella. I spent hours writing submissions and e-mails. I was so excited to get to the point where I could send them in. I wrote on GTW facebook, “So excited. I sent in my book submissions to find an agent.” Many positive comments followed. Less than twenty minutes later, my post was, “And I just got my first rejection. Oh, well. I guess God did not want me to have that agent.” Apparently, it is almost unheard of to get rejected that fast, but it happened to me. I had spent over a year working on that story, so it would hurt when someone said no. 

                I had the opportunity to talk with Dannah Gresh for like three minutes at Cedarville. But in that three minutes she said, “I’ve seen people go through the traditional route in trying to get an agent and publisher and nothing worked, but God has a plan and he opens doors.” 

                The world does not revolve around me and what I want, but God has a plan for me and nothing can thwart it. If he uses my book to impact one single person, I will be joyful. If he uses my book to impact many, I will be joyful.

Comments

  1. Stephanie Morrill8/24/12, 3:54 PM

    I'm so proud of you for querying! You're right, even when you anticipate a no and prepare for it, it still hurts :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. writingsofrosie8/24/12, 4:12 PM

    You'll get there one day! :D Think about the verse, Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

    God bless!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alyson Schroll8/24/12, 4:27 PM

      That verse is on a sticky note on my bulletin board. Thanks for the reminder.

      Delete
  3. Jenna Blake Morris8/24/12, 6:10 PM

    You're right--"sting" must be the perfect word for describing rejection. Definitely not fun. I think the fact that you queried at all is exciting, though, you know? "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" and all that.

    Over a year ago, I started querying for the first time. I queried and queried and queried--and got rejected and rejected and rejected. It was really frustrating at the time, but since then, I feel like I've matured a lot as a writer. For example, now I know that 127,000 words is waaay too long for my genre, which was one huge issue I'd had while querying. Since learning that, I've taken the past year off to rewrite my book again and start over. It'll end up taking me longer to get published this way than if one of those queries had landed me an agent, but I feel like my manuscript (and my writing in general) is much tighter and has a better chance of selling. And looking back, I'd much rather have my current version published someday than that old draft. I've finally almost got my manuscript where I want it to be now, and soon I'll be ready to start querying again. I'm pretty nervous, considering how last time went, but at the same time, I don't have anything to lose. I think I'll be ready this time, because I got the chance to learn from my rejections last time.

    I realize this was a huge and rambling comment; sorry about that. But I hope it makes you feel better--even if the stuff about being better now than I would've been then doesn't help, you can always be like, "Hey, I got a rejection, but that girl over there got over *fifty*, so I'm actually looking pretty good right now." (; I think the author of The Help got about 67 rejections--stories like that always really encourage me.

    Anyways, good luck with future writing projects! Like you said, God will take care of you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ashley N. Mays9/7/12, 11:47 AM

    I'm so impressed that you had the courage to query in the first place, Alyson! Every rejection is another step closer towards publication. Even though it hurts, it's another thing to add to your portfolio as a writer. You've inspired me to keep querying, even though it hurts to get a rejection!

    ReplyDelete

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