It’s amazing the resilience of the human psyche, isn’t it? One moment, you’re down. The next your back in the game.
I keep getting reject after reject for my queries so what do I do? I keep editing my query letter, editing my novel, and researching agents and mailing off more queries. Yeah, I get down when a reject lands in my inbox. But I’m learning to think, “That agent is just not for me.”
As I research and research literary agents, there are HUNDREDS out there! I didn’t realize there were that many! Out of these hundreds, one has to love my work, right? Or does it just suck?
Sure, there are good agents and bad and one must be careful. But with research and guidance from God, I’ll find one, I’m sure.
This is my third work so surely I have it down by now, right?
I’d love to hear how you cope with rejects.
I don’t care. I must be the only one who doesn’t, but I just don’t. I can recall one tiny ping of regret when a panel of editors I admired turned down my work, and also for my first rejection ever, after that it was just water off a ducks back. I presume if someone rejects my work its because it wasn’t the right voice for their company, the editor was having a bad day, or I accidentally sent the rough draft query instead of the real one. (I’ve done that several times before >.<)
If I get 20 or more rejections in a row with no critique, I presume it is the writing and stop all queries until I've edited once again.