Nodding in Sage Agreement

Sometimes the fact that I blog on Fridays, after all the other lovely and talented Novel Girls have had their say, I find that - really - all I have to do is point downwards and exclaim, "Er - yeah! What they said!"

Seriously. My most valued contribution to this conversation would be simply to say, if you are - or if you want to be - a writer, if you are facing the prospect of rejection, if you really really really want to make a go of it in this loony profession, read over the posts below and soak in the wit, the wisdom, the pig-headed stubornness in the face of ridiculous odds, the quietly bloody-minded obstinance and the incandescent double-dog-dare-you determination of Tracy and Maureen and Lisa and Jillian. And me, too, I guess. And then think about all the ways in which you can emluate those behaviors. And do it.

I might be wrong about this - one tends to stop counting at a certain point, simply to save what little sanity remains - but I think I wracked up close to triple digits in rejections on the first book. And then, wallowing in the miseries of that acid-bath one night, I was gently brought to my senses by my boyfriend with words to the effect of:
"Would you shut up and write another book?"
"Wha? But! I am! I--"
"No you're not. You whining about not getting an agent for this one."
"But--"
"Write another book."

So I wrote another book. And that one got me the agent.

And didn't sell.

But the next one...

Well, I quote the immortal wisdom of Galaxy Quest: "Never Give Up! Never Surrender!"

We didn't. You shouldn't either.