How to get through rejection after rejection?

Shoeless said:

Good luck. Stock up on whiskey, or whatever is your favorite numbing alcohol of choice.

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Thanks! I've got a pretty thick skin, and I also realize anything anyone says is only to help me get better. And better is what I want to be! Though the bourbon is definitely helping hahaha.

Treehouseman said:

And something a lot of people forget, if you are a debut writer, make sure your word count is between 75k-100K.

The people who get quick rejections, material unread, will usually fall outside of these guidelines. It's such a common stumbling block and so well known, it's surprising the amount of people on Query Tracker who self-admit to having been rejected for outlier word counts.

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Yes definitely! The first novel I wrote fell at around 200k and I've now come to realize that it was WAY to long had stuff it never needed in it and could easily have been split into 3 or 4 books with how much I tried to cram in there.

My current finished project is sitting at around 80k which is pretty perfect I think.

I got a personalized rejection today... Is it sad I'm so excited about a rejection because it's a personal one instead of a form one???

That's exactly how I feel. I got one personalized rejection before that basically told me my query was really really bad. This one talked about my pages and it was some helpful info and mostly that it ended up just being something she wasn't interested in. This tells me that 1) My query was enough to make her want to read the pages! and 2) She actually liked the writing!

I have this innate fear that despite what my family and friends tell me my writing is actually terrible. To have an agent actually enjoy my writing puts me over the moon. The only people that have beta read this novel are my family, my boyfriend, and one close family friend. (Which are obviously all generally useless for critiques) I'm terrified to have anyone else beta it and tell me I suck XD But now an agent actually enjoyed reading the first chapter of my novel.