Don't lose hope!

Just wanted to share that there’s another, almost cheery side to the whole rejection business. I just received this letter today regarding a manuscript I co-wrote with my husband:


“Unfortunately, your query letter came in when we were moving offices and believe it or not we’re still unpacking boxes. A small stack of query letters got stashed in the wrong box which we thought were old files for storage. Consequently, you didn’t hear from me.
So I’m writing now to find out if you succeeded in finding an agent. If not, I’d love to read the first 50 pages.”

She even tried to email us, but since our address had changed it bounced back.

How’s that for encouragement? The funny thing was, we had just begun our third wave of queries for this particular work. Her letter came before we had sent anything out. We had probably queried her back in November ’04. So it goes to show, don’t give up hope, and remember to follow up on those errant queries!

mmm... pancakes said:

Wow! Co-writing with your husband? You guys must have one healthy relationship! I believe if my partner tried to touch my work I'd have to snip her fingers off one by one. I'm amazed, impressed, and full of admiration for you and yours.

Congrats!

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thanks! Well, we're 18 years and counting, so we must have done something right! I think what helps is that we have a clear demarcation of roles. For me, writing is more of a hobby. Hubby is the [much] better writer, and is doing it professionally. I'm happy just getting to be the first one to ever read his work, and I do all of his proofing & editing. He lets me throw out ideas for him, some of which he uses, some of which he doesn't. The key, I think, is realizing that not all of the ideas I come up with will work, no matter how much I may love them. Therefore, I enter the brainstorming stage with the most realistic attitude possible (i.e., throw out every idea possible, but only use those which best serve the story; kill your babies, yada yada yada).

So whenever I develop an idea for myself, he returns the favor by helping me brainstorm, improve the story structure, and polishes the final product. I find [creative] writing very tedious at times, so it's nice to have a partner that helps me with the difficult parts. hee hee, sometimes I just ask him to write a whole chapter and he does it! Nice perk if you can get it!