Shakespeare I Ain't

Okay, so, admittedly, The Rejectionist’s call to arms to blog about form rejections is the impetus for this post, but I’ve been struggling with my feelings about form rejections for months.

Welcome to my self-administered therapy session.

I think when any of us begins to query, we intellectually understand that form rejection is part and parcel of the process. Everyone gets rejected. We hold the stories of favorite authors, and bestselling authors, and even award-winning authors who were rejected time and time again close to our bosom.

Still, we send off our query letters and our sample pages and wait with baited breath, telling ourselves we are prepared for rejection, but secretly hoping that every last agent will come back begging to represent such brilliance. For free, even, since it’s such a fantastic work of art.

Instead, what we get is an inbox full of self-perpetuating neuroses. Every form rejection letter is dissected over and over again, looking for some small clue that maybe we aren’t doing this in vain. Did she think I had any talent? Does he mean I should give up and pack it in?

Even worse is when the form rejection follows an actual submission, and not the query letter. Hoping for some kind of feedback, even if it’s a secret passcode letting us into a club where we’ll learn how to make it good, make it better, make it representable.

Instead, all that hard work and effort, and making it past that first hurdle–getting someone interested–meets the same brush off as the query. And again, we look for answers in the form. Was she bored? Did he hate it? Why can’t querying be like American Idol? With a Simon Cowell to tell you to give it all up and find a better job?

My first round of querying was met with nothing but form rejections. Sure, I had a couple of requests, but when even those found me left with the constant nitpicking banging around in my head, I put the ms away. I’ve been tempted a few times to pull it out, to pick at it again, but right now I’m listening to what the form rejections told me: Not ready yet. Take a step back. There was some interest, just fix it. Look at it later and you’ll see. Try again. It wasn’t awful enough to end up on an agent’s blog as an example of what not to do, so don’t give up.