They can still say no.

I just spent the majority of my 2021 fixing up Project: GREY, changing major bits and adding in large chunks of new story to expand and elaborate. My goal was to give my character’s room to breathe, to let their thoughts and emotions shine through, as well as add in a whole other character to the book’s climax. It took months to re-outline, months to rewrite, then months to edit and wait for my lovely beta readers to get back to me.

And even after all this…

The agent who put me on this journey could still say, “No thank you.”

That’s right. It doesn’t matter what work I put into it, or how much better the story might objectively be. They could see it, see that it came from me, re-read it, think, “No, it just isn’t working for me. This story, told in this way, by this person, I just don’t know how to sell it.” And they say no. This, of course, is well within their right and I’m not owed anything by the work I put in. They see it. They don’t like.

We move on.

That’s what I need to remind myself of. While I wanted to throw my laptop off a cliff and set fire to it with a burning arrow after hitting Send on The E-Mail to the agent, I didn’t. Currently, I’m working myself up to get started on red pen edits of Project: DEED, my middle-grade realistic fantasy, I finished about a month ago. While I’m working on that one, I’ll keep pitching GREY. You always keep moving.

Until you have a publishing deal, until you have an editor, until you have an agent, until until UNTIL

You keep writing. You keep working.

Also, not even totally sure it was a real Revise & Resubmit!

Thanks for reading,

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Contact: robertmichaelacosta@gmail.com