The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

Belle - rejection margarita for the partial, and a celebratory margarita for the honeymoon news! That's great!

noranne, how 'bout a motivational margarita for writing/querying?

Hey, they really do work for all occasions!

I have given the universe an opportunity to send me another rejection (translation: I submitted a short story).

What have y'all been up to?

I, too, gave the universe that opportunity, but I haven't been up to much else. Back into editing this month, and the first chapter took me much longer than a chapter would at this stage. At least it's done.

Tamlyn - Yay done chapter!

I got a note today that one of my stories has made it to the second round.

I'm very good about not fretting about submissions once I send them out... but once something makes it through to any kind of more-serious-consideration level, I start wanting to constantly refresh my email as badly as anybody. Also, the last time this happened with this market, it led to my first pro sale, so there's that. /*refreshes email, even though they said it'd be a few weeks*/

Liz_V said:

Tamlyn - Yay done chapter!

I got a note today that one of my stories has made it to the second round.

I'm very good about not fretting about submissions once I send them out... but once something makes it through to any kind of more-serious-consideration level, I start wanting to constantly refresh my email as badly as anybody. Also, the last time this happened with this market, it led to my first pro sale, so there's that. /*refreshes email, even though they said it'd be a few weeks*/

Click to expand...

100% This is exactly me. Not from today, but last week I got the rejection for a story that had made it to the second round. I haven't made a pro-sale yet, and though I'm getting kinda (almost sorta) used to plain ol'rejections, the second round rejections are a gut punch for sure. I will cross my fingers for you Liz!

mwritesdragons - Yeah, those "so close! but No" rejections can really sting.

In non-rejection news, me, currently writing: As my favorite quote puts it, Why so difficult?!?

Hope everyone is doing OK. Good luck to Liz, and sorry to mwritesdragons. It's easy to say, but I hope you can take encouragement from the nearly : ))

I'm still in the Land of Deafening Silences regarding my first round of subs to UK agents. I've had a partial from a US agent, but she calls in a lot, and has had it for weeks. Apart from that, absolutely nothing. It's been over a month.

Just got a rejection from an agent at the Maass agency for Aerovoyant. Looks like I sent the query about two months before I self published ... IOW it was a ten month wait for a form R.

It's sort of funny how my heart still skipped when I saw the email waiting... LOL ... and then my mind went through all the 'Why didn't they like it?' as if they could even represent it at this point. I don't need cookies for this one, but if you have any extra time to throw my way I could use a few more hours today!

So sorry, Woollybear! Is there anything I can do to help? Let me know.

It's awful, and heartbreaking, no matter what the circumstances. And having to wait ten months, just for a no!

I can only imagine the agent was clearing out their back log of queries.

With at least ten months' worth, that's what... like 3,000 queries to reply on? I'm doubtful it was even read, but simply cleared with a bunch of others because of agency policy. Or it went into a maybe pile last fall (which is a nice thought) and then the agent realized the book was self published.

I'm fine with it--truly--but the heart-skip at seeing the email always surprises me. And I like sharing data with all y'all. Oh--and I like collecting the data into my spreadsheet so I can have the extra info next time around. This one was through query manager and those do seem to have a better response rate--but ten months, wow.

Another opportunity for rejection! Er, I mean, I subbed another story.

Waiting margaritas to all who are contemplating those empty inboxes. (And to Woollybear; what flavor goes with a very stale R?)

I currently have queries out to 9 agents--4 I submitted nearly 6 weeks ago, 5 have been out only for a week. One of them said she responds in 5-14 days, another specifies 8-12 weeks. The others don't really say what their response times are. Also submitted to Angry Robot's open submission period (for SFF).

The waiting is the worst! I know you all know that.

5-14 days -- I bet I know who that is! If I'm right, I just queried her myself; hope it pans out for both of us.

Yes, I'm querying again. 'Bout darned time. It's that or figure out what to write next, so....

I hope everyone's doing well. My last two queries out are CNR, and I got a rejection on one I forgot I even sent out--so that's fun.

Really debating if I should trunk this project or keep the queries going until my next project is ready to go even if it's harder on my self esteem.

Memory margarita, joeyc. How many queries have you sent on this project so far?

*Hands joeyc a pitcher of margarita* Sorry man. My two cents is that maybe you should take a break from MS #1 and focus on MS #2. You probably have grown more as a writer this second time around. Also, if you get an agent for MS #2, you can always dust off MS #1, whip it into shape, and present your agent with it. Just because you aren't querying it any more doesn't mean it's dead in the water. I also find working on another MS helps take away the rejection and detection blues in regards to the former piece.

Again, just my two cents.

@Liz_V, see that's complicated. I sent out about 15 two years ago and got a full request, but then some other feedback came in that aligned with my gut feeling that it really wasn't ready. Two years later, it's more polished and I sent it to another 10-15 agents and only got 1 partial this time.

I'm okay trunking it for now if I need. I'm making really quick progress through this draft of my current WIP, 75,000 words deep in about a month and a half.

30-ish queries doesn't seem like a lot to me (let's not discuss how many I sent on my first book), but I suppose it depends on your genre.

75K in a month and a half? Okay, my brain just exploded. Go, you! If you're churning it out that fast, I can see maybe shelving MS1 for a while and taking a flyer on MS2.

It's a low number of queries, but I also haven't finished my QueryTracker list yet. So I'll probably do that, I just need to take a break for my sanity and mental health. Weirdly enough, I'm starting to prefer the agents/agencies that don't respond to queries if they're not interested because it's easier for me to take. I might be a minority in that.

All hail sanity breaks, as needed!

On the plus side, I got another short story acceptance! Anthology that I wrote the story for, which is always nice.

On the minus side, got a query rejection, and I gotta admit, this one stings. I really liked this agent! I know, you can't really tell from interviews & such, but she seemed like just what I'm looking for, and a terrific fit for this novel. Aaaaand... form R. Dammit.

That, on top of spending all day trying (and failing) to get a Win10 reinstall to work, and I'm definitely feeling the Dejection part of this thread.

Liz— rejection and acceptance margaritas for you. Hang in there. The short story acceptance is a positive sign! You got this.

Liz - yay on the story acceptance but boo on the rejection

I've been plodding along well with editing, but I've reached a point where I need to write a new chapter, not just edit the existing chapters, and for some reason my brain is just... nope. I know what needs to happen in the chapter! It's filling in a plot hole! I just... can't seem to write it.

Ugh Tamlyn, I know that feeling so well and it's SO frustrating!

I've been slowly, slowly making more progress on MS8. The light at the end is starting to be visible. It's so hard to finish when, right now, I really hate this MS. And I don't think it's a passing phase, I've been unhappy with it for months. But this close to the end, I won't give up. I know the editing won't be easy, and maybe when I go back and re-read the whole thing I'll decide it needs to be scrapped...but I must cross that finish line first.

I've not been querying, due to the generally slowdown from the pandemic and because my numbers weren't very promising. Not sure what the road back to querying looks like for MS7 right now. I did decide to give #SFFpit a shot today, even though I've found it to be overwhelmed with writers vs agents the past couple years, because why not. So far I got 2 small pub likes, both of which are not genre matches for my book. Ah, well. I did get some nice encouragement from other writers, and it's fun to scroll through the feed.

On short stories, I have 2 that I was notified were being held for consideration, so that's nice. Really hoping at least one of those comes through, as I could really use the validation from a "yes" right now! I also have a couple new ones I want to write, but not until MS8 draft is done.

Hope everyone is well--sounds like my general malaise is mirrored quite a bit here. Hugs, cookies, and wine all around!

Tamlyn - Argh! Silly, uncooperative brains. When I've had that happen, sometimes it's helped to try a different technique -- dictating into a voice recorder, or handwriting if you usually type, etc. One time, I had to storyboard a chapter, which was ridiculous especially since I'm not a visual writer; I knew perfectly well what happened, but for some reason the words refused to come until I sketched out the key scenes in stick-figure art.

Who knows? Brains are weird.

noranne - Go you on plodding ahead, and sympathies on the MS not being your friend. Fingers crossed on the short stories!


I'm trying to figure out what to do about my query. I think it's good, but it's just not getting the response I'd hoped for. I've no idea what to do differently with it, though. I've commented here before that I'm not overly keen on QLH, but I'm almost desperate enough to try it!