I’m referring to my decades-long trek to find a literary agent. Though I’ve self-published seven novels, the decision to do so each time followed a fruitless search for an agent.
Years of seeking an agent have taken a toll, not least by the endless waves of rejection. As a child, I struggled with what I would describe as almost an aversion to rejection. It was always a struggle to ask something of someone. I’d much rather be asked.
Beyond rejection, the toll has involved hesitation, frustration, annoyance (not quite anger, not quite), disappointment and fatigue. I spent years jumping through proverbial hoops, attending seminars and workshops, taking a college writing course, joining writers associations, entering writing contests, and following the recommendations of resident writers, in an endless search for the ultimate hoop – a link to standard publication.
In recent years, I’ve used AgentQuery.com to find agents that might relate to my work. Not seldom, I’ve found crucial information regarding a listed agent not current. At times, I’ve barely emailed my query when I receive a polite form rejection. Typically, it reads “…read your query…not really for me…best of luck….” Occasionally, it feels as if my electronic submission triggered an automatic electronic rejection.
I used to feel almost apologetic for adding to the daily onslaught of an agent’s queries. Though I still struggle to overcome my hesitation to bother them, I no longer feel as apologetic. What would I apologize for? This query I’m sending constitutes heart’s blood I’ve put months if not years into creating.
Do I sound bitter? I hope not. I’m not aware of feeling bitter. (Disappointed? Yes. Disheartened? A bit, though no more than briefly.) I try not to allow bitterness a place at the table of my emotions. If I were to, it would signify a surrendering of hope, something I will not do as long as I breathe.
In my dogged exercise of hopefulness, I am currently pursuing agented representation for my latest novel. The tally to date: a single request for the full manuscript out of almost eighty queries. My response: I will complete the current challenge by sending out the remaining fifteen queries by requested snail mail ASAP.
How do I sound in offering a window into my experience? And does my experience strike a familiar note with any who have tried to ply my chosen path?
Stay
hopeful. I will.
We writers are gluttons for punishment. The quest for an agent or publish is not a task for the timid, the rejects are real. McCarthy speaks for many of us in this post! But, that one acceptance makes it all worth the agony.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain! Really it's like winning the lottery. Often, it's not really about the quality of your work but the timing and the market. Sometimes you even write exactly what the market wants but you just somehow manage to query the agent just as they already signed another manuscript for the same sort of thing! I know a literary agent (unfortunately, she does not represent the genre I write!) an she says it's also painful for her, in her own way, to have to turn down otherwise perfectly good stories that are either not quite what she's looking for or just hit her desk a few weeks too late. Agents usually are not lying at all when their form-rejection says "not for me." I guess I'm just grateful when they bother to send a response at all - many don't, these days! One of these days, our queries will be in the right place at the right time. Even some of the form rejections say: Don't stop trying!
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