Hope..

Everyone likes to hear “great job” or “nice work” every once in a while.  It keeps people going.  If you only heard the negative it would make a person question if what they are doing, is working.  I think this is especially hard on writers, in fact, stay at home moms too. 

As a stay at home mom we are expected to do it all.  There is very little praise; there is no pay raise, or an evaluation yearly to tell you what you have done right or what you can improve on.  There is however mother’s day, birthday’s, valentines and Christmas where you get gifts and cards.  These lift our spirits and keep us going.  Reminding us why we do it.  No not for the cards or gifts. But for the people that give us those cards and gifts.  We love our family and we want to do whatever we can to make them happy, which in return makes us “stay at home” moms happy!

Now, as a writer the same applies, minus the holidays.  Writers spend hours, alone, writing. Many of us don’t make any money from this passion, making it hard to justify if you are good at it.  I write novels and of course I get praise from family and friends about my work.  But, I know they are supposed to say those nice and encouraging words.  I still love hearing them, so friends don’t stop!  And as a writer our novel is our baby.  We put ourselves out there when we send our query letters out to agents.  We are summarizing something we have put years of hard work into; it is our passion and we love it.  And to get emails after emails of agents telling you they do not love it, is hard.  It hurts.  But we keep going because we still do love writing, even if nobody ever reads it.

I sent out 5 query letters last Thursday, January 27^th, four of which were requested by the agents at the conference and one was an agent I wanted to pitch to but didn’t have time.  By Saturday, January 29^th, I had gotten back three form rejection emails, one was from the one agent that requested a full.  Crushing, but with each one I was getting stronger.  I still had hope, but in the back of my head I started to doubt myself.  Is my story good? Should I just throw in the towel?  Maybe this is an unreachable goal?  But I suppressed that, I haven’t given enough time for my dream to come true, and there is no way I am giving up anytime soon.  I was checking my email almost every two minutes, and nothing.  Abigail’s seventh birthday was getting closer and that day would be seven days exactly since I sent my queries out.  I knew I would be getting another form rejection that day. 

Around two o’clock, on February 3rd, I checked my email for the thousandth time.  There it was staring back at me in bold black font the reply from the last agent that had requested a query at the conference (she is also the one that asked for a synopsis).  My heart raced, we were about to go to the movies, did I want to open it and ruin my time with my family?  No, I didn’t, but I knew it would eat at me if I didn’t causing me to not enjoy the movies.   I took a deep breath and read:

Dear Jessica,

Thanks so much. It was great to meet you too. I enjoy your writing and think FLIGHT is a great story. Please feel free to send the full manuscript as an attachment. Thanks again!

I cried and danced around.  I know it isn’t representation but it was a little flicker of hope.  It was my mother’s day card, so to speak, showing that what I love to do and have worked so hard on is GREAT!  I sent the manuscript to her immediately and she replied with a thank you and that she would get back with me in four to six weeks.  The time line will allow me to not email watch for the month of February, which is good since I am taking the month off!

I will continue to query in March and I know I will get more rejection but I also know that there is an agent out there that will love my story and be as passionate as I am to get it published!