rejections and outlines

Current tuneage: I'll Be Your Lover Too - Van Morrison

Well, I finally got a response back from the agent that requested the full manuscript on exclusive. It was a no (clearly, or there would be a lot more exclamation points in this post), but she was nice enough to comment on why she wasn't going to ask to represent it. Several of the comments she made have been made by other agents which is good because it lets me know that there's one aspect of the novel that I definitely need to work on. (It's much harder when one agent says they loved "X" about my novel and another says I need to work on "X". When two or more agents say that something needs to be worked on, I generally take their advice!)

So needless to say, it's not exactly the news I'd been hoping for. But then again, I think being a writer has made me somewhat of a realist if not a pessimist. It really just makes it easier to take the rejections and to convince myself to keep pushing on. The longer this goes on, the thicker my skin gets. And from everything I've heard about the publishing industry, if you don't have thick skin, you'll never survive.

On a slightly happier note, I've finally found some time these past few days to work on my short story. I got stuck a little bit ago and came to the realization that perhaps even short stories need to be outlined in advance. I suppose I could have gone on without an outline, but I believe it would have just created more (and unecessary) editing work down the road. If I have a clear idea of where the story is headed, it makes it easier for me to write. Even if I stray off that path, I at least have a direction.

Work has been pretty stressful this week, so it's always nice when my writing is going smoothly. It makes taking other things a little easier... not to mention it's FRIDAY!!

Have a great weekend!