Don't say the R-word

When life gives you lemons... draw faces on them! It's fun.

You see, I have been trying to get a book published. And yes, that sounds ridiculously pretentious and cocky, but when writing’s the only thing you want to do, I reckon you should start as early as you can. With this in mind, shortly after Christmas, I began sending out submissions for said novel to various Literary Agencies up and down the country. As tempting as it is to simply send your work straight to a publisher, it’s also useless: they will not read it. Plus, if you can convince a literary agent that your work is good enough to sell, then convincing a publisher suddenly becomes a hell of a lot easier.

So I sent off these submissions. The first one I got back fairly quickly, which was okay, given that it simply indicated that they hadn’t read any of it, they just weren’t accepting any new authors at this time, thank you very much. That’s okay, that’s not rejection – just poor research on my part. Number One on every prospective author’s list is to do your research. You don’t want to piss off companies by sending things at the wrong time, to the wrong people. Luckily, they didn’t seem to mind all that much, it just meant I’d wasted 81p on a stamp.

But when I came to face this envelope this morning, I knew things would be different. It had been too long for this to be a simple, “not accepting submissions,” reply. Instead, I got my first out-and-out rejection (well not my first, but getting one over a very different book when you’re fourteen isn’t quite the same thing as getting rejected over the revised version six years later).

They were very nice about it. It was a standard rejection letter, of course, but with all those books to read, how could it be otherwise? Apparently, my book just wasn’t right for them – and looking at the headings on the letter, I can kind of understand their point. I’d sent my novel to a “children’s book agency” – and while it could be YA (Young Adult) at a push, I don’t think the themes in it are particularly suited to anyone under sixteen.

This rejection has also been good, because it has convinced me that I need to do something that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: re-edit. I got to the point last summer, when I simply couldn’t look at it anymore – after three months of constant work, I was beginning to see computer screens in my sleep and needed a break (at least essays are only 3,000 words, rather than 100,000).

But it’s time to go back to the drawing board, so to speak. I know it’s going to be difficult to get a book published; but the earlier I start trying, surely the better chances I have? When you want something this badly, you shouldn’t let a little thing like one or two rejections get you down. If you enjoy reading what you’re written, and for the value of the work, not just enjoying the fact that you’ve written it, chances are, someone else will enjoy reading it too.

And if that’s the fact, sooner or later - or eventually – there’s an agent, somewhere, who will recognise this.

But in the meantime, I’m not going to sit still and wait patiently. There’s still room for improvement and I intend to exploit it. It’s a favourite saying of my father to reiterate to me how many people rejected J.K. Rowling before she hit the person who believed in her (I have actually no idea how true this is, but I’m grateful for the sentiment), but there’s nothing quite like rejection for stirring the old work ethic into action.

Who knows what horrendous version of Harry Potter we might have been stuck with had the first agent accepted her work.

Rejection’s not a hurdle –it’s a springboard.

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